A hashtag - #DeleteFacebook - is trending. Lawmakers are investigating the company. Major execs like CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg are pulling all- nighters trying to get ahead of the controversy. And, like the hashtag suggests, people are deleting their Facebook accounts.
The controversy at the heart of Facebook's current situation is part of their bigger, ongoing story regarding Facebook's role in the 2016 US presidential election. The latest news, revealed late last week, comes from a whistleblower who used to work for a company named Cambridge Analytica - the company harvested the data of over 50 million Facebook users, then used that data to help the Trump campaign target advertisements.
Facebook was aware of the cache of Facebook user data that Cambridge Analytica had, and asked the company to delete it. Facebook never followed up or confirmed the deletion of the data, and even allowed Cambridge Analytica to continue operating on Facebook until last week.
And thus, Facebook users are walking away from Facebook.
Celebrities are even getting in on it - Jim Carrey tweeted out a drawing he made of Zuckerberg, which featured a quote from a much younger Zuckerberg bragging about Facebook.
