Transparency: How Facebook Can Recover From The Cambridge Analytica Crisis | Forbes

In his regular column for Forbes, Dr. Nelson F. Granados addresses the recent Cambridge Analytica crisis in which millions of Facebook users' personal data was illegally leveraged toward micro-targeted advertising, eroding trust in the social media platform. Dr. Granados' column focuses on what Facebook can do to regain trust and how similar platforms might better inform users about how their personal information is potentially monetized, going forward.

For nearly two decades, Pepperdine Graziadio Associate Professor of Information Systems, Director of the Center for Applied Research, and Co-Director Institute of Entertainment, Media, and Culture at Pepperdine, Dr. Granados has studied how firms strategically disclose information to consumers in the digital space. In his experience, most companies are reactive as opposed to proactive. With Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg under scrutiny in the Cambridge Analytica aftermath, Dr. Granados says this should be impetus for firms to do more to bolster user confidence and avoid culpability and carelessness in the future. Zuckerberg's promises to provide greater user control over third-party use of data, Dr. Granados expects, will not be enough.