Facebook suspends Trump-connected Cambridge Analytica
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook has suspended Cambridge Analytica as it investigates whether the Donald Trump-connected data analysis firm failed to delete personal data that the social network says it improperly obtained from hundreds of thousands of users.
Facebook announced the suspension of the accounts of Cambridge Analytica and its parent company late Friday after being tipped off that the user data the analysis firm had received from a researcher — who had obtained it from a personality quiz app accessed through Facebook — was not destroyed as promised.
The suspension comes as Facebook continues to deal with the fallout from the 2016 election, when campaigns and foreign influence operations used social media in unprecedented ways to sway voters. Cambridge Analytica, backed by top Trump donor and hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, claims it can predict how people will vote based on the 5,000 pieces of data it collects on nearly every American adult combined with the results of thousands of personality surveys. Enlisted by the Trump campaign, it touted its role in swinging the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook said a psychology professor legitimately gained access to the personal data of Facebook users while working on a personality prediction app, but the researcher violated Facebook’s rules by passing it on to Cambridge Analytica, Facebook says.
The firm was asked in December to turn over documents to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as part of his investigation into collusion between the campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
Facebook said that Aleksandr Kogan, a researcher in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, gained access to the personal information of 270,000 Facebook users in 2013 after they chose to download his app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” which billed itself as a research app used by psychologists. The information included hometown, content the users liked and their friends.
In 2015, Facebook learned that Kogan broke its policies by passing on the information to Cambridge Analytica and to Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies. Facebook says it was assured the information had been deleted, but received reports several days ago that it was not.
“We are moving aggressively to determine the accuracy of these claims,” Facebook’s deputy general counsel Paul Grewal said in a blog post. “If true, this is another unacceptable violation of trust and the commitments they made.”
Facebook said it has suspended the accounts of Strategic Communication Laboratories, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, as well as the accounts of Kogan and Wylie. They could not be immediately reached for comment.
In the fall, Mueller asked the firm to turn over emails of Cambridge Analytica employees who worked on the Trump campaign, signaling the special counsel is probing the data operation.
Former senior White House strategist Steve Bannon served on Cambridge Analytica’s board of directors and had a stake in the firm.
Mueller is investigating whether Trump associates colluded with Russian operatives to meddle in the election. Trump has denied he or his campaign colluded. The Russian government has denied meddling in the election.
