Facebook has uncovered internal emails that hint at CEO Mark Zuckerberg's was aware of some of the problematic privacy practices for which the company is currently under scrutiny, Wall Street Journal reported (paywall). The emails were uncovered as Facebook is currently providing information to the US Federal Trade Commission, as part of its investigation into the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The FTC is investigating the scandal and social media company for possible violation of the 2012 consent decree, in which Facebook "agreed to better protect user privacy". Anonymous sources told the newspaper that Zuckerberg raised the potential issues with "thisisyourdigitallife" – the personality quiz app at the center of the Cambridge Analytica scandal – in an email with colleagues, and was thus aware of the privacy issues. The publication, however, said that it had no knowledge of the content of unearthed emails and how many of them were related to Zuckerberg. CNN reported yesterday, that following the development, Facebook “disputed” the WSJ report. In 2013, Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor at Cambridge University, created an app named “thisisyourdigitallife” that promised to predict aspects of users’ personalities. Around 270,000 people downloaded the app and signed in using their Facebook accounts, giving Kogan access to information about their city of residence, Facebook content they had liked, and information about their friends. It was later found that as many as 87 million Facebook profiles were harvested for Cambridge Analytica, a UK based consulting firm. The following timeline will explain why this WSJ report can potentially change the way the…
