"Although Kogan gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels that governed all developers on Facebook at that time, he did not subsequently abide by our rules," Paul Grewal, a vice president and general counsel at Facebook, said in a statement. The problem, Facebook says, is that Kogan then sent this user data to Cambridge Analytica without user permission, something that's against the social network's rules. As part of the login process, it asked for access to users' Facebook profiles, locations, what they liked on the service, and importantly, their friends' data as well.įacebook's data appears to have been improperly used for political purposes during the UK's Brexit vote and the 2016 US presidential election. The app asked users to log in using their Facebook accounts. Kogan reportedly created an app called "thisisyourdigitallife" that ostensibly offered personality predictions to users while calling itself a research tool for psychologists. What did Cambridge Analytica do?įacebook said in a statement on March 16 that Cambridge Analytica received user data from Aleksandr Kogan, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. His comments "do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation," the company said in a statement. Nix has since been suspended from his job as CEO. "We have lots of history of things," Nix said in the videos, "I'm just giving you examples of what can be done and what, what has been done." In the videos, Nix discussed lies and apparent blackmail he'd perform as part of his efforts to sway elections.
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The company has since faced criticism for what executives, including CEO Alexander Nix, said in a series of undercover videos shot by the UK's Channel 4. The company says it has " 5,000 data points on over 230 million American voters" - or pretty much all of us, considering there are an estimated 250 million people of voting age in the US. It then uses computer programs to predict voter behavior, which could be influenced through specialized advertisements aimed at the voters.Ĭambridge Analytica isn't working with a small amount of user data. The firm combines data from multiple sources, including online information and polling, to build " profiles" of voters. Cambridge Analytica helps political campaigns reach potential voters online.
Cambridge Analytica says it complies with the social network's rules, only receives data "obtained legally and fairly," and did wipe out the data Facebook is worried about.Ĭambridge Analytica is a UK-based data analytics firm, whose parent company is Strategic Communication Laboratories. It then reportedly tapped the information to build psychographic profiles of users and their friends, which were used for targeted political ads in the UK's Brexit referendum campaign, as well as by Trump's team during the 2016 US election.įacebook says it told Cambridge Analytica to delete the data, but reports suggest the info wasn't destroyed.
Separately, Facebook said it was purging pages linked to a Russian troll farm that's known for creating fake online identities and posting on both sides of politically divisive issues.Ĭambridge Analytica reportedly acquired the data in a way that violated the social network's policies. Meanwhile, the number of accounts affected has risen to 87 million from initial reports of 50 million.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in Washington this week to testify before Congress. Over the past three-plus weeks, the situation has snowballed. Facebook said it was investigating the reports, which involved data consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Last month, The New York Times and the UK's Guardian and Observer newspapers broke news the social networking giant was duped by researchers, who reportedly gained access to the data of millions of Facebook users and then may have misused it for political ads during the 2016 US presidential election. Consultants working for Donald Trump's presidential campaign exploited the personal Facebook data of millions.