Cambridge Analytica Got Data on 87 Million Facebook Users

Remember learning that Trump campaign data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica grabbed personal information from 50 million Facebook users? Fake News! it was 87 million.

But that’s nothing. Facebook now admits it let all kinds of skeevy cyber customers (it calls them “malicious actors”) scrape personal data from 2 billion people. Yes, that’s most Facebook users. Oops.

Looks like Mark Zuckerberg will have some ‘splainin’ to do when he testifies before Congress next Tuesday. Fun Fact: Three of his congressional questioners own FB stock.

Shut-the-Barn-Door-After Department: There are Plans to Restrict Data Access on Facebook.

More:

“Mark Zuckerberg knows he screwed up,” Kurt Wagner, ReCode

“Facebook says it should have audited Cambridge Analytica,” Associated Press

“Facebook’s dizzying spin on ‘the Cambridge Analytica thing,’” Callum Borchers, Washington Post

“Facebook suspends Canadian firm linked to Cambridge Analytica,” Kia Kokalitcheva, David McCabe, Axios

“As Facebook confronts data misuse, foreign governments might force real change,” Nick Noack, Washington Post

Related:

“This is how Zuckerberg’s Facebook will likely get regulated,” Chase Purdy, Quartz

“It’s about to get harder to trick people with political ads on Facebook,” Hanna Kozlowska, Quartz

“Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Says Data-Sharing Tool Complied With FTC,” Sarah Frier, Bloomberg

“AP sources: EPA chief spent millions on security and travel,” Michael Biesecker, Associated Press

“Private Messages Aren’t Exactly Private at Facebook,” Shira Ovide, Bloomberg Gadfly

“Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes,” Josh Constine, Techcrunch

“Facebook may need group therapy to fix its engineering culture,” Janet Guyon, Quartz

“Can We Be Saved From Facebook?” Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

“Don’t Fix Facebook. Replace It.” Tim Wu, New York Times

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Cambridge Analytica & the Trump Campaign

During 2016 the Trump presidential campaign paid $5.9 million to data firm Cambridge Analytica, which harvested information from 50 million Facebook users in order to develop psychographic data it used to micro-target advertising to individual voters. Unless it didn’t.

Cambridge Analytica illegally mined FB user data for the Trump campaign. Unless Cambridge Analytica was merely using Facebook the way it was designed to be used, and it’s really Facebook that’s at fault.

Trump Campaign factotum Jared Kushner brought in Cambridge Analytica, funded by the U.S. conservative Mercer family, with links to a Chinese firm through U.S. mercenary Erik Prince, and Steve Bannon was a board member. SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, is British. At the same time, the Make America Number 1 Super PAC paid Cambridge Analytica $5.7 million to develop negative ads targeting Hilary Clinton. The PAC-Trump campaign coordination and foreign involvement are violations of federal election law. Maybe.

In short, Cambridge Analytica was the secret weapon that helped get the 70,000 Trump votes in key states that swayed the 2016 presidential election. Or it wasn’t.

Clear?