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It's been an especially tough week for Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg, with the social media platform embroiled in the recent data privacy scandal involving Cambridge Analytica (CA). By allowing third-party developers to access Facebook user data, the company left people open to exploitation, with Cambridge Analytica doing exactly that.

While the full extent of CA's use of private Facebook data is unknown, it does shed even greater light on the fact that the social media platform has been used for the dissemination of fake news and advertising designed to influence elections.  

In the wake of the scandal, Zuckerberg issued a statement via his own Facebook page, and has been doing the rounds at various Stateside news organisations in order to explain the situation and apologise to his users.

"This was a major breach of trust and I’m really sorry this happened," said Zuckerberg in an interview with CNN. Adding, "Our responsibility now is to make sure this doesn’t happen again."

Along with trying to perform some damage control following this fallout, Zuckerberg also noted in the interview that he'd be willing to testify before the US Congress, as well as noting that the company would inform all users whose information had been taken without their permission or knowledge. Furthermore, he said that Facebook would be doubling its security force this year, with more than 20 000 individuals set to be assigned.

While it's still to be determined if Zuckerberg's apology and future plans to correct the situation are genuine, it is still unclear what kind of restrictions on access to user data the company will be implementing. "There are probably 15 changes that we’re making to the platform to further restrict data," noted Zuckerberg in an interview with Wired.

It should be interesting to see what kind of user fallout will occur following this scandal, with the movement to delete Facebook gaining traction from a number of users, including the WhatsApp co-founder.