As Facebook's troubles with privacy issues continue to play out in the media, a new spotlight has been cast on California Attorney General candidate Chris Kelly for his former role as the company's chief privacy officer. In a profile in this week's New Yorker, Kelly describes his old position as Facebook's "top cop": "There are versions of every serious crime you can imagine attempted on a network like Facebook," he said. "Any network of five hundred million humans will have a number of them trying to do bad things to each other at any given time."
Kelly's rival in the AG race, Kamala Harris, has seized upon his connection to Facebook's high-profile privacy issues in a series of new campaign ads. The LA Times writes: "It seems the issue of Facebook privacy has gained enough currency to earn itself a place in a TV attack ad in the race for California attorney general -- almost certainly the first Facebook-oriented TV ad in U.S. politics."
Via Politico comes another ad from Harris that focuses on the Facebook issue even more explicitly, suggesting that it endangers children.:
The LA Times also reports today that Kelly has contributed an additional $2.45 million to his campaign, bringing his personal total to $12.5 million with 4 days to go until the primary.