Facebook Updates Cambridge Analytica Casualty List, Adds 37 Million To First 50 Million

For those who thought that the Cambridge Analytica issue could not get any worse, Facebook just added 37 million users on top of the initial 50 million that they estimate were affected by the nefarious scheme cooked up by the British data analytics firm. This brings up the total to 87 million or so users having their data stolen and used to manipulate the 2016 US Presidential elections, which resulted in the victory of Donald Trump.

The social network revealed this new information via an update post, which is intended to clarify Facebook’s intent on what user data it will be sharing going forward. Oddly enough, this particular tidbit was added right near the end and with an effort to put as little attention to it as possible.

“In total, we believe the Facebook information of up to 87 million people — mostly in the US — may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica,” the post reads.

Facebook provided a chart just below the detail, as well, indicating that user data was also obtained from many other countries. Next to the U.S., which had the biggest number at 81.6 percent or over 70 million users, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the UK came after, at around one million or so each.

As The Verge notes, the rest of the post talks about the changes that Facebook would be putting in place with regards to its API, with special attention on who will be able to access the data of users. Among the bigger changes that the social network is supposedly planning on implementing is limiting the kinds of information that apps will be able to ask users, especially when they log in using their Facebook accounts.

For the most part, it’s encouraging that there is at least some effort to start protecting user data from Mark Zuckerberg’s company. However, the actions taken or planned so far are by no means as good as they could be, and perhaps they never will.