Abstract:
In the spring of 2018, the data company Cambridge Analytica was accused of having
leaked and abused the Facebook user data of tens of millions of people against their will. This
data was used to influence elections around the world, including the United States and the United
Kingdom. In order to determine if users were harmed by this data leak, John Stuart Mill’s harm
principle can serve as a threshold determination, but it must be placed in the proper context in
order to do so. The Facebook scandal needs to be positioned in the history of privacy in the
United States to determine its place in the debate, how Facebook is dealing with the subject, and
what predictions can be made for the future. Furthermore, the future of social studies must be
considered in the context of using user data from Facebook, as issues with research data from
this social network have occurred several times in the past.
