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AT THE CENTRE of a scandal over alleged misuse of Facebook users’ personal data, Cambridge Analytica is a communications firm hired by those behind Donald Trump’s successful US presidential bid.
An affiliate of British firm Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), Cambridge Analytica has offices in London, New York, Washington, as well as Brazil and Malaysia.
Here’s the story behind the company using data to fuel political campaigns:
What does Cambridge Analytica do?
The company boasts it can “find your voters and move them to action” through data-driven campaigns and a team including data scientists and behavioural psychologists.
Cambridge Analytica claims on its website that it has data on more than 230 million American voters.
“Within the United States alone, we have played a pivotal role in winning presidential races as well as congressional and state elections,” it says.
Speaking to TechCrunch in 2017, CEO Alexander Nix said the firm was “always acquiring more” data.
“Every day we have teams looking for new data sets,” he told the site.
Who are the company’s clients?
As well as working on the election which saw Trump reach the White House, Cambridge Analytica has been involved in political campaigns around the world.
In the US, analysts harnessed data to generate thousands of messages targeting voters through their profiles on social media such as Facebook, Snapchat, or the Pandora Radio streaming service.
British press have credited Cambridge Analytica with providing services to pro-Brexit campaign Leave.EU, but Nix has denied working for the group.
Globally, Cambridge Analytica said it has worked in Italy, Kenya, South Africa, Colombia and Indonesia.
What has the company been accused of?
According to the New York Times and Britain’s Observer newspapers, Cambridge Analytica stole information from 50 million Facebook users’ profiles in the tech giant’s biggest-ever data breach, to help them design software to predict and influence voters’ choices at the ballot box.
University of Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan created a personality prediction test app, thisisyourdigitallife, which was downloaded by 270,000 people.
The tool allowed Kogan to access information such as content Facebook users had “liked” and the city they listed on their profile, which was then passed to SCL and Cambridge Analytica.
The Observer reported the app also collected information from the Facebook friends of people who had taken the test.
Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, worked with Kogan and told Canadian television channel CBC the company used “private data they acquired without consent”.
Who else is involved?
US hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer – and major Republican party donor – bankrolled Cambridge Analytica to the tune of $15 million (€12 million).
The Observer said it was headed at the time by Steve Bannon, a top Trump adviser until he was fired last summer.
How has Facebook responded?
Since the news broke, Facebook has suspended SCL and Cambridge Analytica, as well as the accounts of Kogan and Wylie.
In explaining its decision on Friday, the social media giant said the thisisyourdigitallife app was legitimate but accused Kogan of subsequently violating Facebook’s terms by passing the data on to SCL/Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook said it found out what had happened in 2016 and was told all parties involved had deleted the data.
“The claim that this is a data breach is completely false,” Facebook said in a new statement on Saturday, saying app users knowingly provided their information.
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This is the new alternative to trade unions; company models that respect their workers make the need for trade union obsolete.
But it’s not really, is it?
This guy has his exit strategy lined up and nobody expects the takeover company to continue to employ all staff at 70k. I also expect his risk analysis to include projections for an increase in contract staff, and his HR team to be supplied with copies of Mein Kampf.
Dream on buddy
Maybe it is a blocking manoeuvre nobody is going to take your start up away from you if you’ve the highest cost base possible.
I have no strong opinions on this.
@Trea.
Judging by what I see, T/Unions are almost obsolete anyway however many employers are stingy & exploit their employees.
I doubt if this generosity will ever occur in Ireland.
@Sammy very good
Hi, can you forward this article to Dail Eireann please?
Thanks in advance
Stay on topic
I’m pretty sure the minimum wage there is already over $70k
Nowhere near, a person working a 40 hour week on minimum wage in Ireland would earn in the region of €17,000 per year. That’s a massive leap away from $70,000 which is much closer to €55,000.
I re-read your comment and see I was a little off-point but the figures remain very much the same. The minimum wage in the US is $8 an hour which equates to $15,360 per year working a 40 hour week.
I meant the minimum wage in the Dail. Not clear enough obviously.
Great idea. Getting loads of free publicity.
Application form please
Do they need a cabinetmaker???
I need a cabinet maker. where are you based?
Founder and chief exec. Surely still the major shareholder so I’m guessing salary is insignificant in the grand scheme, but nice optics.
Unless there are restraints on naked capitalism, imposed or voluntarily assumed, capitalism eventually becomes unsustainable.
Although we paid the CEO’s of the Banks large fortunes in compensation packages, we got incompetent monkies.
Large salaries are no indicator of talent or ability.
Senior executive salaries are generally gross and disproportionate.
Don’t know why you got red thumbs for that
He used words of more than three syllables which tags him as a commie pinko lesbian lefty in the minds of some who post in the Journal
That much is true Tony.
Sorry @Anthony Lang
Capitalism always works. When you tinker with capitalism, like bailing out the banks, it runs into problems.
This guy is doing the capitalist thing, he’s thinking of new innovative ways to grow his business, attracting hardworking employees.
I really hope it works for him.
It is a fact that there is no correlation between the salary of the CEO and the success of a company
I see it reported in this weeks Kilkenny Reporter newspaper that Ms Siobhan Talbot, Group Managing Director of Glanbia has a remuneration package that increased from €1.02m to €1.62m since she was promoted. It is also reported that the four member executive team share a combined package worth €4.22m I always wonder when I see such figures, where is the evidence of a correlation between super pay packages and performance. It certainly wasn’t evident in banking circles.
Hes also CEO of this company http://www.reynholm.co.uk/index.php
Don’t think he can persuade the CEO of the company I work for to do the same, would be nice though.
It is a wonderful thing for the staff and I wish we could have some thinking like that here.
Anybody got a distribution list for TD’s n Ministers & any ex Taoiseagh & heads of depts & charity organisations. …!!
Whatever about this guy. Any one else remember the lead up to the dotcom bubble bust of the late 90′s.I got deja vu all over again.I remember learning to ‘code’ back in 95. Of course it was just html back them and I already could code C and Basic.I have an odd feeling about all of this.
Tech startups are getting cocky again, then? This has always ended well in the past.
Don’t worry, nobody’s falling for this tech malarkey.
This CEO is making a decision on employee happiness for $70k from a university that pays it’s professors $200K +
Yeah but those guys are really really really happy!!
There must be a snwtch…..sorry catch…..
Guessing by the thumbs down nobody else thinks so.
Really hate yiz all right now . Feckin hoors the lot of yiz !!!!
have your say