Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg provided a public response on his Facebook page, and provided responses via rare appearance on media as well. Now company COO Sheryl Sandberg is taking to the cameras to apologize for the situation and makes muted reference to possible regulations.
Sandberg spoke to CNBC and said, “It’s not a question of if regulation, it’s a question of what type” and said that if she could do the last week over again, she’d have spoken publicly sooner on the company’s dealings with Cambridge Analytica. Like Zuckerberg, there isn’t much new in her comments, as Sandberg reiterated that Facebook changed the data privacy policies in question years ago, “but that wasn’t enough.”
When referencing if something like this could happen again, she didn’t outright deny anything and didn’t make any promises. “There will always be bad actors,” she said. From her perspective, Facebook does not “sell your data,” since the company doesn’t tell advertisers who you are even though it lets them push targeted ads to you.
Taking a look at the interview, it appears that this was a very calculated appearance to try and manage the backlash the company expected to see including ongoing scrutiny and inevitable regulation.
