After the Cambridge Analytica controversy, Facebook is trailing far behind other tech companies when it comes to the public trust. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday, only 41 percent of Americans trust Facebook to obey U.S. privacy laws.
In comparison, 66 percent said that they found Amazon trustworthy, 62 percent trust Google and 60 percent trust Microsoft. Apple and Yahoo!, though lower, still had higher levels of trust at 53 and 48 percent.
Facebook also is facing investigation from the Federal Trade Commission in order to determine whether it violated users’ privacy. If they are found guilty, the fines could be astronomical. As reported by Forbes:
Former FTC officials have said that if Facebook violated or failed to comply with the consent decree it agreed in 2011, it could be fined $40,000 per violation. Theoretically, if Facebook mishandled the data of 50 million Americans, fines could amount to $2 trillion.
But even if they don’t get heavily fined, the company is going to have to work to recover trust after they compromised the personal data of over 50 million users. Will this scandal be a death knell for Facebook? Or will they continue to dominate the social media arena?