Facebook to hold emergency meeting with employees after allegations of data harvesting
MENLO PARK, Calif. (KGO) -- Facebook is holding an emergency meeting with employees today to talk about Cambridge Analytica. The political data firm with ties to the Trump campaign is accused of accessing 50 million Facebook profiles.
TIPS: How to unlink Facebook account from third party apps
Facebook says its investigation into what happened is just getting started.
"We are unbelievably outraged and beyond disturbed at the allegations that data was misused or that our policies have been violated," said Carolyn Everson, VP of Marketing, Facebook.
RELATED: CNET Executive Editor Ian Sherr discusses Facebook data mining scandal
At the center of the scandal is Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm with ties to the Trump campaign. They're accused of accessing, without consent, the profiles of up to 50 million Facebook users and using that information to try to sway your vote.
New video from Britain's Channel 4 shows the "political data firm" giving an undercover reporter a sales pitch and also promising ways to trap rival candidates. Facebook has banned Cambridge Analytica, which says it never used the data and deleted it.
"So now Facebook is feeling the effects of that. And the worst part, they didn't even tell us this happened. This happened three years ago and we are only now finding out about it," said Ian Sherr, CNET Executive Editor.
RELATED: Facebook stock plunges with Trump-affiliated firm under fire for obtaining user data
The New York Times reports Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos will now leave by August because of internal conflict over how transparent Facebook should be about user data being used to influence this year's coming mid-term elections.
Facebook says it's too early to say how they'll notify the 50 million users that were affected.
#DeleteFacebook began trending after news of the data leak became public. People were upset their profiles were sold to a company that helped the Trump campaign.
Some of their anger is targeted at Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. He's been silent on the data leak so far.
Some apps allow location tracking while others upload your phone contacts and even photos. To revoke app permissions, follow these steps on your Facebook page:
Go to "account settings."
Click "apps" on the left-hand sidebar.
Click the "X" on the right of each app to revoke access to your data.
Confirm "remove" when the window prompts you to do so.
You can also disable Facebook's "platform" feature, which stops Facebook from integrating with games and other apps for login purposes in the future.
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