By now, we’ve all heard of many different factors and theories that enabled Donald J. Trump to get hold of the coveted top spot at the White House. Many experts theorized that Facebook played a huge part, primarily as a platform for the Russian state to spread misinformation and ‘fake news’. However, over recent weeks it has been revealed that Facebook enabled Cambridge Analytica to gain vast amounts of data on its users. This data was then used by the firm to further Donald Trump’s election campaign by targeting information at certain people based on their profiles. This might seem confusing, so we’ll break it down further and get to the bottom of what it actually means for you.

So what exactly happened?

Way back in 2015, a Professor at Cambridge University created a Facebook app, similar to a click-bait “OMG find out what age you die” type that we’ve all filled out at some point. Well this one was about your online habits, but you needed to agree to share your profile information with whoever developed the application; again, something we’ve all probably agreed to at some point. Strangely though, in 2015 it was in Facebook’s Terms of Service (ToS) that the developer could also access the user’s friends profile data. This resulted in the Professor gaining the data of 30 million users, instead of the data of 300,000 people that directly used the app.

The alarming part is that Facebook knew this data was being collected, because it was in the scope of their ToS. However, the Professor proceeded to share it with data analytical firm Cambridge Analytica. By doing so, he broke the ToS agreement and Facebook legally ordered both the professor and the firm to delete the data. While they agreed to do so, recent events have revealed the data was never actually deleted. Instead, they collated the information and built psychographic profiles of the individuals based on Facebook likes and other data in order to target information and manipulate them. It’s impossible to measure the impact this had on the U.S. election, if any, but the fact that anyone’s data is potentially out there for manipulation of this kind is very scary. Mark Zuckerberg has apologized and said that there are now things in place that will prevent someone from ever gaining that much information again. But the question remains, is it possible to trust Facebook again?

What are the main takeaways?

1. Facebook knew that this data had been obtained and assumed that it had been deleted. But why was this even possible in the first place and why hadn’t they taken extra measures to ensure that the data was properly deleted?
2. And why did Facebook not notify users when they knew there was a chance their data could be improperly used by a third party?

So what does this mean for me?

Firstly, you should be very cautious when using Facebook. If you’re one of the people who’s data has been used without your knowledge then Facebook has apologized directly to you, but it’s a little late now. Even though they now say they’ve changed their attitude and they will be more proactive in shutting down apps that are seen to be collecting vast amounts of data, the ball is entirely in your court whether you take the risk. The platform costs nothing in monetary value to use, but Facebook isn’t a charity. Facebook, developers and advertisers are all using your data in an attempt to manipulate you, whether that’s buying products, attending events or in this case, voting for their preferred candidate in an election. If you choose to use the platform, just be aware that Facebook is trusting third parties to use your data ethically and have so far failed to prevent this from happening.

So what can I do?

If you want to be proactive, go ahead and deactivate all third party apps from your Facebook account. The chances of you fully deleting your Facebook account are pretty slim though and the social media giant know this, especially with its connectivity with Instagram, WhatsApp and other apps that use it to log in. Facebook has become a bottleneck for so many of our online activities, which makes it massively inconvenient to delete your profile. That being said, deactivate those apps and let it be known that it’s on each of us to defend our own data, because Mark Zuckerberg and Co have proven they can’t be trusted to do it on our behalf.