Facebook CEO Zuckerberg addresses Cambridge Analytica data scandal

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has addressed the steps his company is taking to protect user privacy after reports that Trump campaign-affiliated political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica was able to obtain 50 million Facebook users' personal data without their knowledge.

"We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you," Zuckerberg wrote in a post to his Facebook profile.

He noted that Facebook tightened its privacy protections in 2014, a year after an app maker collected tens of millions of users' data and passed the info along to Cambridge Analytica.

"What Cambridge Analytica does is works on creating a web of disinformation online so that people start going down a rabbit hole of clicking on blogs, websites, et cetera, that make them think that certain things are happening that may not be," Chris Wylie, a co-founder of Cambridge Analytica who became a whistleblower, told NBC's Today.

Zuckerberg is now promising to investigate all pre-2014 apps that had access to large amounts of user information and ban any app that doesn't agree to a thorough audit.

But the response may not deter a new class action lawsuit in California accusing the social media giant of unfair business practices and negligence over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The class action lawsuit follows one filed by investors after reports of the data misuse led to a big dip in Facebook's stock on Monday.

It is not clear if Zuckerberg's post will placate the state and federal authorities looking into whether to regulate Facebook and the rest of Silicon Valley following this incident.