Facebook apologizes for Indonesian users’ data leakage but refuses to take the blame

Representatives of Facebook Indonesia and Asia Pacific finally testified before the Commission I overseeing international affairs, security, and defence at Indonesian parliament on Tuesday after requesting for the postponement. The world’s most famous social network explained the data breach affecting 1 million users in the country.

Ruben Hattari, Head of Public Policy at Facebook Indonesia, denied the alleged personal data leakage. He said the incident that involved a political consulting form Cambridge Analytica ( CA ) is a violation of the third party, in this case, a personality quiz application, Kogan.

Hattari stated that no third party that could penetrate Facebook ’s system.

Indonesian parliament members, slammed Hattari’s statement, saying that the company was trying to defend itself and let others take the blame. Some cast their doubt on Facebook ’s ability to protect its users’ data.

“I am not convinced that Facebook can protect our data,” said commission member Evita Nursanty.

Neutrality is being questioned

Facebook previously announced that personal information of 87 million users worldwide had been improperly harvested by CA to help Donald Trump to win the 2016 election.

Out of 87 million accounts, around 70 millions of them belong to Americans.

Indonesian lawmakers questioned about Facebook ’s neutrality as the largest country in Southeast Asia is having simultaneous regional elections on June 27.

Evita questioned whether Facebook could convince Indonesia that it is neutral after the CA scandal.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) report previously revealed that CA ’s parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratory (SCL) played a role in rebranding Rodrigo Duterte’s image, helping the flamboyant man to win the 2016 Philippines presidential poll.

Besides data breach, lawmakers also grilled Facebook over the handling of misleading information and hate speech content.

Facebook Asia Pacific vice president of public policy Simon Miller said the Menlo Park-based tech firm was pursuing legal action against CA following its involvement in the U.S election.

He added that Facebook implements clear policies to tackle the circulation of hate speech content and false news. Users can report hate speech, pornographic material to be deleted.

Miller said,”We have thousands of people working to keep people safe and to ensure we review reports quickly. We receive 3 million reports every week.”