Facebook CSO Alex Stamos is reportedly breaking up with the social media giant after differing with management on transparency regarding Russian operatives leveraging its platform to disrupt U.S. democratic processes and influence the presidential election.
Stamos's day-to-day responsibilities had been ported to others in December, and he tweeted late Monday that while his duties had indeed changed, he was “still fully engaged” at Facebook but was “spending more time exploring emerging technology risks and working on election security.”
But the New York Times reported Monday that Stamos would leave his post in August after his call for greater transparency went unheeded by Facebook. The CSO said in a later tweet, that his team “has never been prevented or discouraged from investigating any Russian activity by any executives.”
Facebook is facing renewed scrutiny after Cambridge Analytica—the data analytics firm used by the Trump and Brexit campaigns to target voters—violated its policies by collecting the personal data from accounts of 50 million Americans without their permission.
The social media company booted the firm, its parent, an executive, a whistleblower and a Cambridge professor that posted the app used to lure Facebook users, but lawmakers, privacy advocates and investigators are demanding answers from Facebook about its policies but also why it didn't reveal the violations when it discovered them in 2015.
