THE FACEBOOK / CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA SCANDAL
Episode 231 | Historical Events
In this History episode we focus on the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal — 87 million users' data harvested without consent through a personality quiz, sold to a political data analytics firm funded by Robert Mercer, and used to build psychographic profiles deployed in the 2016 US presidential election, the Brexit referendum, and the 2016 Cruz primary campaign. Facebook discovered in 2015 that Kogan had transferred the data to Cambridge Analytica in violation of its developer policies. Facebook asked Cambridge Analytica to certify the data had been deleted and accepted the certification without independent verification. Facebook did not notify the 87 million users whose data had been transferred.
Christopher Wylie went public on March 17th, 2018. Facebook suspended his accounts the same day. The FTC fined Facebook $5 billion — approximately one month of revenue — in 2019. Cambridge Analytica dissolved in 2018. The platform's advertising model, which made the harvest possible, has been regulated, fined, and adjusted. It has not been fundamentally changed.
This podcast features narration with a synthetic AI voice.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
