The Mounting Federal Investigations Into Facebook

Facebook now faces investigations into its business practices from a variety of federal agencies. Officials have opened inquiries into possible civil and criminal violations of laws related to privacy, corporate governance and discrimination. Facebook has largely denied wrongdoing in each of the investigations and said it was cooperating with regulators and law enforcement. Here are the agencies looking into Facebook, and some of the issues involved.

• Federal Trade Commission: potential privacy violations by the social network
• Securities and Exchange Commission: investigating how much Facebook knew about the data harvested by Cambridge Analytica and if executives of the social network properly disclosed its findings
• Department of Justice: investigating whether Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained data on Facebook users. It is also investigating if Facebook properly disclosed what it knew about data-sharing with Cambridge Analytica before news reports revealed the practice.
• Department of Housing and Urban Development: suing Facebook claiming that the company engaged in housing discrimination by allowing advertisers to restrict who is able to see ads based on race and other factors