Facebook's Zuckerberg admits mistakes over Cambridge Analytica

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has admitted the giant social network "made mistakes" over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

He pledged to introduce changes that would make it harder for third-party apps to "harvest" users' information.

A "breach of trust" between app creator Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook had occurred, he said.

But it was also a breach of trust "between Facebook and the people who share their data with us".

"I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I'm responsible for what happens on our platform," Mr Zuckerberg said in a statement on his Facebook page.

To address current and past problems, he said Facebook would:

investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before the platform was changed "to dramatically reduce data access" in 2014
conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity
ban any developer that did not agree to a thorough audit
ban developers that had misused personally identifiable information, and "tell everyone affected by those apps"

In future, Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook would:

restrict developers' data access "even further" to prevent other kinds of abuse
remove developers' access to a user's data if the user hadn't used the developer's app for three months
reduce the data that users give an app when they sign in to just name, profile photo, and email address
require developers to obtain approval and also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data