News Highlights:
- Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Trial Over Alleged Data Exploitation
- Trial to Expose Meta’s Internal Handling of User Privacy
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the stand this week as the star witness in a landmark $8 billion trial, where he faces allegations of running Facebook as an illegal enterprise that exploited users’ data without their consent.
According to Reuters, shareholders of Meta Platforms — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — have filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg along with several current and former company executives.
The plaintiffs claim that Meta repeatedly violated the terms of a 2012 agreement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which required Facebook to safeguard users’ personal data.
The case stems from revelations in 2018 that the now-defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica accessed data from millions of Facebook users without authorization.
The firm was linked to Donald Trump’s successful 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, intensifying scrutiny over Facebook’s handling of user privacy.
Shareholders want Zuckerberg and the other defendants to reimburse the company for more than $8 billion in fines and other costs paid by Meta after the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light, including a record $5 billion fine imposed on Facebook by the FTC in 2019 for violating the 2012 agreement.
Defendants in the case include former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, venture capitalist and board member Marc Andreessen, as well as former board members Peter Thiel, the Palantir Technologies (PLTR.O), opens new tab co-founder, and Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix.
Zuckerberg and the other defendants, who declined to comment, have dismissed the allegations in court filings as “extreme claims.” Meta, which is not a defendant, also declined to comment.
The non-jury trial in Wilmington, Delaware, begins on Wednesday and is scheduled to last eight days. It will mostly focus on decade-old events and board meetings to determine how Facebook leaders implemented the 2012 agreement.
While the trial will cover long-ago policies, it comes as privacy concerns continue to dog Meta, which is under scrutiny for its training of AI models. The company says it has invested billions of dollars since 2019 in its program to safeguard users’ privacy.
Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers, said the case will fill in details about what the board knew – and when – regarding the data of users, who now total more than 3 billion daily across Meta’s platforms.
“There’s an argument we can’t avoid Facebook and Instagram in our lives,” he said. “Can we trust Mark Zuckerberg?”
