Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s public statement on Cambridge Analytica overwhelmingly failed to quell concerns, said Ina Fried, Chief Technology Correspondent at Axios.
“[The company] did a good job of hitting their talking points and they were very consistent,” Fried told Cheddar. “But I don’t think that’s the real measure...There’s a lot still to be answered.
“People want to know what are they doing now for the threats that they’re facing. We’re still waiting to see if are they capable of stopping things like misinformation and election fraud.”
After five days of silence, Zuckerberg gave interviews with four media outlets on Wednesday. The key takeaways included an explicit apology, his willingness to testify in front of Congress, and his openness to regulations on ads on Facebook.
The public mea culpa stems from revelations last week that a data company, Cambridge Analytica, had used Facebook to harvest information on tens of millions of Americans without their permission. That data was then packaged into personality profiles and sold to President Trump’s campaign team during the 2016 election.
In an effort to build back trust with users, Zuckerberg also posted a statement on his Facebook profile with a detailed timeline of what happened and a few changes to privacy and data policies, including an audit of thousands of apps on its platform.
But that isn’t enough, said Alex Shepard, staff writer at The New Republic.
“They would need to open themselves up to an external audit...to look at how these groups and apps are using their data, and they’re not going to do that.”
The apology didn’t do well with investors either. Facebook stock dipped nearly another three percent Thursday, continuing the stocks worst week in years.
Meanwhile in D.C., lawmakers continued to push for Zuckerberg to testify before Congress.
“The notion that these large platforms that have such dominance in the marketplace are going to police themselves and respect the privacy interests of the American people has clearly not worked,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) told Cheddar Thursday.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/mark-zuckerberg-tries-to-smooth-things-over-with-billions-of-friends).
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
