California Sues to Force Facebook to Hand Over Cambridge Analytica Documents
California's attorney general accuses Facebook of ignoring subpoenas related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and asks a court to compel the company to produce the requested evidence.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra accuses Facebook of ignoring lawful subpoenas regarding the state's investigation into the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In a recent court filing, Becerra states that Facebook provides a patently deficient response by failing to answer nineteen interrogatories and producing zero documents for six specific requests.
The state seeks internal communications from top executives, including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, as well as records detailing the company's privacy changes. Becerra argues that this lack of cooperation obstructs the investigation into serious allegations of unlawful business practices by one of the world's richest companies.
This legal pressure follows the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica's unauthorized scraping of tens of millions of Facebook profiles to target swing voters. Although the Federal Trade Commission previously fines Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations, the California attorney general now asks a court to force the social media giant to finally turn over the remaining evidence.