Facebook suspends Cambridge Analytica for misuse of user data, which Cambridge denies
Facebook suspends Cambridge Analytica for misuse of user
data, which Cambridge denies
In a blog post, Facebook says Cambridge Analytica used
data passed to it by the maker of a psychology app, against Facebook
guidelines.
Cambridge Analytica had told Facebook it deleted that
data, but Facebook says it recently got reports that the data had not been
fully deleted.
The Trump campaign paid Cambridge Analytica more than $6
million to help it target voters through ads on Facebook.
Matt Rosoff Published
11:28 PM ET Fri, 16 March 2018 Updated
22 Hours Ago
CNBC.com
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of
Facebook Inc.
Facebook has suspended Cambridge Analytica, a political
data analytics firm that worked on Facebook ads for President Donald Trump
during the 2016 presidential election, saying that it lied about deleting user
data sent to it by the makers of a popular psychology test app.
In a blog post that went up late Friday night, Facebook
explained that a University of Cambridge psychology professor, Dr. Aleksandr
Kogan, created an app called "thisisyourdigitallife," which asked
users to answer questions to build a psychological profile.
According to the social network, Kogan "lied"
to Facebook by passing that data along to Strategic Communication Laboratories
(SCL) and Cambridge Analytica — an SCL affiliate — without informing users.
The net effect allowed the firm to turn innocuous page
"likes" and other Facebook user data into information that was mined
for political use.
"In so doing, [users] gave their consent for Kogan
to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content
they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their
privacy settings set to allow it," Facebook said.
Boz
✔
@boztank
We have suspended Cambridge Analytica from our platform
for a clear violation our policies. They cannot buy ads or administer its
clients' pages. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/suspending-cambridge-analytica/
…
6:12 PM - Mar 16, 2018
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While Facebook didn't mention the 2016 election or
reference Trump in the blog post, there's no escaping the connection. The Trump
campaign paid Cambridge Analytica more than $6 million to target Facebook ads
based on voter data it had collected in the run-up to the election, according
to Federal Election Commission records cited by Reuters.
According to Facebook, about 270,000 people downloaded
Kogan's app, and gave consent for the creator to access information such as the
city they set on their profile, or content they had liked.
The social network said it banned the app in 2015, and
Cambridge Analytica said that it had deleted all data from it. However,
Facebook said it recently received reports that the company had not in fact
deleted all the information, leading it to suspend SCL and Cambridge Analytica
until further notice, pending an internal investigation.
On Saturday, Cambridge Analytica issued a statement
disputing Facebook's allegations. The firm "fully complies with Facebook's
terms of service and is currently in touch with Facebook...in order to resolve
this matter as quickly as possible."
Playing out in the background of Facebook's dispute with
Cambridge Analytica is the wide-ranging probe into Russia's meddling in the
2016 election. As part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, a
federal grand jury recently indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian
entities for waging "information warfare" against the U.S.
Facebook and Twitter were perceived as critical to
Trump's surprising victory over Hillary Clinton, something not lost on the
president. Trump has already named Brad Parscale, who ran the campaign's
digital operations, as campaign manager for his 2020 reelection bid.
Cambridge Analytica was founded in 2013 and has offices
in the U.S., U.K., Brazil and Malaysia, according to its website. In addition
to Trump, the organization has worked on campaigns supporting Republicans Ted
Cruz, Ben Carson and Thom Tillis, a senator from North Carolina.
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