Facebook suspends Hundreds of apps as part of Privacy investigation

Facebook, the powerful and popular social media network, has been in the news recently for wrong reasons. One of the major criticisms it has been facing is the lack of proper action against the online privacy of its 2 billion subscribers. The network has been undertaking a privacy investigation into the apps hosted on the service and has suspended hundreds of apps for privacy violations.

Most of the allegations have been the improper sharing of user data. A recent facebook newsroom post stated that the exercise of removing the apps was as part of an investigation into the privacy violations. The operation was in force from March 2018.

While Facebook has been presenting it as one of the stringent actions against the violation of user data and privacy, the fact remains that the issue of privacy violation is far more serious than what was witnessed so far. In fact, it would also mean that it is far more dangerous than what facebook had initially acknowledged.

The documents submitted to the court as part of the investigation by Massachusetts attorney general have shown that Facebook has suspended over 69,000 apps. A host of them was suspended because they were not cooperating with the Facebook investigation. Some 10000 apps were suspended because they were misappropriating the personal data of the Facebook users.

The suspension of such a huge number of apps was suspended indicates to a possibility of a serious lapse on the part of the social media service. This has given rise to the concerns as to whether the data on Facebook that the users share is secure enough.

Facebook has been under the scanner ever since Cambridge Analytica indicated that it could retrieve information from social media service a host of information without the permission from the users themselves. This was in 2016 and the network has been under fire for failing to protect the user data.

While the court has asked the social media network to reveal the names of the developers of these apps, Facebook has been understood to have declined to identify them.