Facebook today revealed that it has banned another quiz app, myPersonality, over concerns of data misuse. This step was taken after they did not allow Facebook to audit their app raising doubts regarding them having shared user information with researchers as well as companies.
So far this is the second quiz app that has been banned after Facebook announced a large-scale audit of its platform in March. The first one being, This Is Your Digital Life which Facebook banned after it was found to be linked to Cambridge Analytica. According to Ime Archibong, VP of Product Partnerships at Facebook, “Since launching our investigation in March, we have investigated thousands of apps. And we have suspended more than 400.” These apps were banned on concerns around the developers who built them or around these apps misusing the information people chose to share.
[box type=”shadow” align=”” class=”” width=””]According to Facebook App Review policy, no user information will be shared with apps if the user hasn’t used them in 90 days.[/box]
myPersonality was created by researchers at the Cambridge Psychometrics Centre to source data from Facebook users via personality quizzes. The quiz app gathered data on some four million users when it was operational from 2007 to 2012 and illegally gave it to researchers and companies. In May, Facebook suspended the app, which hadn’t been active since 2012, but now it has been completely banned.
Facebook will notify people who chose to share their Facebook information with myPersonality. Currently, they have no evidence if the quiz app accessed any friends’ information. If they find any such evidence, they will be notifying these people’s Facebook friends as well.
Read Facebook’s official statement on the Facebook blog.
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