Facebook has suspended the account of the whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica
Facebook has suspended the account of the whistleblower
who exposed Cambridge Analytica
Jonathan Shieber@jshieber Mar 18 3:14p
Tech hath no fury like a multi-billion dollar social
media giant scorned.
In the latest turn of the developing scandal around how
Facebook’s user data wound up in the
hands of Cambridge Analytica — for use in the in development in psychographic
profiles that may or may not have played a part in the election victory of
Donald Trump — the company has taken the unusual step of suspending the account
of the whistleblower who helped expose the issues.
Christopher Wylie
@chrisinsilico
Suspended by @facebook. For blowing the whistle. On
something they have known privately for 2 years.
4:37 AM - Mar 18, 2018
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In a fantastic profile in The Guardian, Wylie revealed
himself to be the architect of the technology that Cambridge Analytica used to
develop targeted advertising strategies that arguably helped sway the U.S.
presidential election.
A self-described gay, Canadian vegan, Wylie eventually
became — as he told The Guardian — the developer of “Steve Bannon’s
psychological warfare mindfuck tool.”
The goal, as The Guardian reported, was to combine social
media’s reach with big data analytical tools to create psychographic profiles
that could then be manipulated in what Bannon and Cambridge Analytica investor Robert Mercer allegedly referred to
as a military-style psychological operations campaign — targeting U.S. voters.
In a series of Tweets late Saturday, Wylie’s former
employer, Cambridge Analytica, took issue with Wylie’s characterization of
events (and much of the reporting around the stories from The Times and The
Guardian).
Cambridge Analytica
✔
@CamAnalytica
We told @nytimes & @guardian that Mr. Wylie was a
contractor for CA. He was not a founder.
https://twitter.com/guardian/status/975073945727787008 …
2:10 PM - Mar 17, 2018
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Meanwhile, Cadwalldr noted on Twitter earlier today she’d
received a phone call from the aggrieved whistleblower.
Carole Cadwalladr
@carolecadwalla
Plaintive phone call from Chris: he's also banned from
WhatsApp.
And - outraged voice! - Instagram.
"But how am I going to curate my online
identity?" he says.
The Millennials' first great whistleblower? And @facebook
hitting him where it hurts
https://twitter.com/chrisinsilico/status/975335430043389952 …
10:51 AM - Mar 18, 2018
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2,155 people are talking about this
Facebook has since weighed in with a statement of its
own, telling media outlets:
“Mr. Wylie has refused to cooperate with us until we lift
the suspension on his account. Given he said he ‘exploited Facebook to harvest
millions of people’s profiles,’ we cannot do this at this time.
“We are in the process of conducting a comprehensive internal
and external review as we work to determine the accuracy of the claims that the
Facebook data in question still exists. That is where our focus lies as we
remain committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s
information.”
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