The Scandal of the Century (or, more likely, Week)
I had thought that I understood the extent to which our government was corrupt. Then, late Monday night, I found out about the interviews with Cambridge Analytica (although I admit that I only understood the ramifications on Tuesday), and all of that changed.
For those of you not following the issue, the Cambridge Analytica scandal is probably one of the scariest (in my opinion at least) in recent memory, or at least the scariest confirmed to be true (unlike the ongoing investigations against the president). It contains all of the elements of a good scandal: international conspiracy, election meddling, data mining, fears over new technology, and the "criminal making one mistake" trope of the old Encyclopedia Brown detective stories popular with preteens.
(As with my second post, this blog post uses as its main source an excellent tell-all report, which was published on Saturday by the Guardian.)
For those of you who haven't seen the it in the news, Cambridge Analytica is a political consulting and data analysis company based (through some legal shenanigans) in both America and the UK. This particular political consulting firm has been involved in a large number of elections around the world in its short existence, including supporting President Trump during his 2016 campaign. Nothing about this is inherently suspicious, as many such organizations exist around the world, doing generally minimal harm.
As it turns out, however, Cambridge Analytica did far more than minimal harm. Interestingly enough, their nefarious schemes began long before the 2016 election. Based on research by scientists at (fittingly enough) Cambridge, the company figured out how to analyze people's Facebook profiles in order to glean personal information. This in and of itself is not illegal. However, it went about getting this data in a less that scrupulous manner.
It created an app that gave out money for answering surveys. In the process, it took personal data from the user's Facebook accounts. Oddly enough, this is legal. What was not legal was taking all of the data from the user's friends' accounts, which this app also did. (Notably, as of October 2015, Facebook knew about this fact but failed to take any serious action against the data mining efforts). This gave Cambridge Analytica access to a truly colossal amount of data (to the tune of about 50 million users' worth) by the time of the 2016 elections.
And if its own claims are to be believed, it put that data to very effective use. According to their own claims as reported in this opinion piece by Richard Wolffe published in the Guardian, they informed "'all of the strategy' behind the Trump campaign" using the data that they surreptitiously gathered with their app. This meant running targeted political ads that preyed on those their data told them was vulnerable, helping (although to an extent that we can't measure) to shift the election further in favor of Donald Trump.
Perhaps even more interestingly, it turns out that Cambridge Analytica may have had some connections to the Russian government. The organization is in fact one of three closely interrelated organizations that worked together on the data gathering and advertising campaign that Cambridge Analytica launched (the other two being SCL Elections Limited and Global Science Research). The latter of these two happens to be associated with a man named David Kogan, the original discoverer of the analysis methods used by Cambridge Analytica. He also happens to be am associate professor at the State University of St. Petersburg, where he received funds for his research from the Russian government. The exact strength of this connection is one for further investigation, but the mere existence of such a link is rather worrying, especially given other developments regarding Russia and the Trump campaign.
(As a side note, if you're a visual learner, the relations I just described are outlined in a very well-done infographic on the Guardian article).
There is one bit of amusement to be derived from this scandal, oddly enough, and it lies in the bizarre defiance of reality of the masterminds behind the scandal. The leaders of Cambridge Analytica, caught on tape bragging about their roles and abilities (especially in fabricating scandals), claimed that they were exaggerations; operating out of Delaware, they claimed that they were not subject to US jurisdiction; censured by Facebook, they claimed a close working relationship.
But all such amusement aside, this is a deeply alarming development. I hope the leaders of these organizations end up in prison for their various crimes (which include the data mining and a number of financial crimes relating to moving money between PACs and campaigns) and that we can implement laws that will stop these sort of events from occurring in the future, but as to whether or not it will succeed remains to be determined.
For those of you not following the issue, the Cambridge Analytica scandal is probably one of the scariest (in my opinion at least) in recent memory, or at least the scariest confirmed to be true (unlike the ongoing investigations against the president). It contains all of the elements of a good scandal: international conspiracy, election meddling, data mining, fears over new technology, and the "criminal making one mistake" trope of the old Encyclopedia Brown detective stories popular with preteens.
(As with my second post, this blog post uses as its main source an excellent tell-all report, which was published on Saturday by the Guardian.)
For those of you who haven't seen the it in the news, Cambridge Analytica is a political consulting and data analysis company based (through some legal shenanigans) in both America and the UK. This particular political consulting firm has been involved in a large number of elections around the world in its short existence, including supporting President Trump during his 2016 campaign. Nothing about this is inherently suspicious, as many such organizations exist around the world, doing generally minimal harm.
Photo of Cristopher Wylie, a whistleblower for Cambridge Analytica. Image Credits
As it turns out, however, Cambridge Analytica did far more than minimal harm. Interestingly enough, their nefarious schemes began long before the 2016 election. Based on research by scientists at (fittingly enough) Cambridge, the company figured out how to analyze people's Facebook profiles in order to glean personal information. This in and of itself is not illegal. However, it went about getting this data in a less that scrupulous manner.
It created an app that gave out money for answering surveys. In the process, it took personal data from the user's Facebook accounts. Oddly enough, this is legal. What was not legal was taking all of the data from the user's friends' accounts, which this app also did. (Notably, as of October 2015, Facebook knew about this fact but failed to take any serious action against the data mining efforts). This gave Cambridge Analytica access to a truly colossal amount of data (to the tune of about 50 million users' worth) by the time of the 2016 elections.
And if its own claims are to be believed, it put that data to very effective use. According to their own claims as reported in this opinion piece by Richard Wolffe published in the Guardian, they informed "'all of the strategy' behind the Trump campaign" using the data that they surreptitiously gathered with their app. This meant running targeted political ads that preyed on those their data told them was vulnerable, helping (although to an extent that we can't measure) to shift the election further in favor of Donald Trump.
Perhaps even more interestingly, it turns out that Cambridge Analytica may have had some connections to the Russian government. The organization is in fact one of three closely interrelated organizations that worked together on the data gathering and advertising campaign that Cambridge Analytica launched (the other two being SCL Elections Limited and Global Science Research). The latter of these two happens to be associated with a man named David Kogan, the original discoverer of the analysis methods used by Cambridge Analytica. He also happens to be am associate professor at the State University of St. Petersburg, where he received funds for his research from the Russian government. The exact strength of this connection is one for further investigation, but the mere existence of such a link is rather worrying, especially given other developments regarding Russia and the Trump campaign.
(As a side note, if you're a visual learner, the relations I just described are outlined in a very well-done infographic on the Guardian article).
There is one bit of amusement to be derived from this scandal, oddly enough, and it lies in the bizarre defiance of reality of the masterminds behind the scandal. The leaders of Cambridge Analytica, caught on tape bragging about their roles and abilities (especially in fabricating scandals), claimed that they were exaggerations; operating out of Delaware, they claimed that they were not subject to US jurisdiction; censured by Facebook, they claimed a close working relationship.
But all such amusement aside, this is a deeply alarming development. I hope the leaders of these organizations end up in prison for their various crimes (which include the data mining and a number of financial crimes relating to moving money between PACs and campaigns) and that we can implement laws that will stop these sort of events from occurring in the future, but as to whether or not it will succeed remains to be determined.
I think the most staggering concept from this scandal is not the scandal itself, but the ability to acquire such data through modern technology and apps such as the one created by Cambridge Analytica. If this scandal doesn’t, maybe its background will make us rethink our own relationship with technology and the world that functions in and around us through our screens.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about this scandal but this is shocking. I can't believe that there was an actual app that paid people to take these surveys to better off Trump's campaign. I also hope these leaders do end up in prison because this is messed up. After the election I feel as if I don't know who to trust anymore.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sophie that the most staggering part of this scandal is that companies like Cambridge Analytica could acquire so much data. I think it's very important to be aware of our online profiles and read all of the specifications before we agree to download an app or join an online community. I hope for most people that they took this scandal as a scare; now they know how putting themselves out there on the internet can make them vulnerable to be preyed upon by companies like Cambridge Analytica. It's scary enough that those who took the surveys were at risk, but they put their friends and families at risk too. We need to be more careful of our online presence.
ReplyDelete