The world’s biggest social network is at the center of an international scandal involving voter data, the 2016 US presidential election and Brexit.
Consultants working for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign exploited the personal Facebook data of millions.
Last month, The New York Times and the UK’s Guardian and Observer newspapers broke news the social networking giant was duped by researchers, who reportedly gained access to the data of millions of Facebook users and then may have misused it for political ads during the 2016 US presidential election. Facebook said it was investigating the reports, which involved data consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
Over the past three-plus weeks, the situation has snowballed. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in Washington this week to testify before Congress. Meanwhile, the number of accounts affected has risen to 87 million from initial reports of 50 million. Separately, Facebook said it was purging pages linked to a Russian troll farm that’s known for creating fake online identities and posting on both sides of politically divisive issues.
Cambridge Analytica reportedly acquired the data in a way that violated the social network’s policies. It then reportedly tapped the information to build psychographic profiles of users and their friends, which were used for targeted political ads in the UK’s Brexit referendum campaign, as well as by Trump’s team during the 2016 US election.
Facebook says it told Cambridge Analytica to delete the data, but reports suggest the info wasn’t destroyed. Cambridge Analytica says it complies with the social network’s rules, only receives data “obtained legally and fairly,” and did wipe out the data Facebook is worried about.
Here’s what you need to know.
Cambridge Analytica is a UK-based data analytics firm, whose parent company is Strategic Communication Laboratories. Cambridge Analytica helps political campaigns reach potential voters online. The firm combines data from multiple sources, including online information and polling, to build ” profiles ” of voters. It then uses computer programs to predict voter behavior, which could be influenced through specialized advertisements aimed at the voters.
Cambridge Analytica isn’t working with a small amount of user data. The company says it has ” 5,000 data points on over 230 million American voters ” — or pretty much all of us, considering there are an estimated 250 million people of voting age in the US.
The company has since faced criticism for what executives, including CEO Alexander Nix, said in a series of undercover videos shot by the UK’s Channel 4. In the videos, Nix discussed lies and apparent blackmail he’d perform as part of his efforts to sway elections.
“We have lots of history of things,” Nix said in the videos, “I’m just giving you examples of what can be done and what, what has been done.”
Nix has since been suspended from his job as CEO. His comments “do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation,” the company said in a statement.
Facebook said in a statement on March 16 that Cambridge Analytica received user data from Aleksandr Kogan, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. Kogan reportedly created an app called “thisisyourdigitallife” that ostensibly offered personality predictions to users while calling itself a research tool for psychologists.
The app asked users to log in using their Facebook accounts. As part of the login process, it asked for access to users’ Facebook profiles, locations, what they liked on the service, and importantly, their friends’ data as well.
The problem, Facebook says, is that Kogan then sent this user data to Cambridge Analytica without user permission, something that’s against the social network’s rules.
“Although Kogan gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels that governed all developers on Facebook at that time, he did not subsequently abide by our rules,” Paul Grewal, a vice president and general counsel at Facebook, said in a statement .
Kogan didn’t respond to requests for comment. The New York Times said he cited nondisclosure agreements and declined to provide details about what happened, saying his personality prediction program was “a very standard vanilla Facebook app.”
The Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica to run data operations during the 2016 election. Steve Bannon, who eventually became Trump’s chief strategist, was also reportedly vice president of Cambridge Analytica’s board. The company helped the campaign identify voters to target with ads, and gave advice on how best to focus its approach, such as where to make campaign stops. It also helped with strategic communication, like what to say in speeches.
“The applications of what we do are endless,” Nix said last year in an interview with CNET sister site TechRepublic.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Cambridge Analytica also worked with other 2016 presidential election campaigns, according to its website and various media reports. Those included the campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz and candidate Ben Carson, who went on to join Trump’s cabinet as secretary of housing and urban development.
Facebook said Cambridge Analytica “certified” three years ago it had deleted the information, as did Kogan. But since then, Facebook said, it’s received reports that not all the user data was deleted. The New York Times reported at the outset of this controversy that at least some of it remains.
Cambridge Analytica said in a statement that it deleted all the data and is in contact with Facebook about the issue.
Meanwhile, Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower who detailed how Cambridge Analytica reportedly misappropriated the Facebook data, said on Twitter that his Facebook account had been suspended. A few days later, he held a press conference to discuss his situation and the larger controversy.
“I’m actually really confused by Facebook,” Wylie said. “They make me out to be this suspect or some kind of nefarious person.”
The New York Times characterized the original problem as a data “breach” and said it’s “one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history.” That’s in part because the roughly 270,000 users who gave Kogan access to their information allowed him to collect data on their friends as well. In total, more than 87 million Facebook users are said to have been affected.
The misuse of this data is what The New York Times zeroed in on.
Facebook, however, says that while Kogan mishandled its data, all the information Kogan got was accessed legally and within its rules. The problem is that Kogan was supposed to hold on to the information himself, not hand it over to Cambridge Analytica or anyone else. Because the information was accessed through normal means, Facebook disputes the characterization of the incident as a breach.
“People knowingly provided their information, no systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked,” the company said.
Of course, critics point out that Kogan was able to do what he allegedly did because Facebook allowed app developers to request and receive access to the data of users’ friends. Facebook changed that policy in 2015, prohibiting the practice.
When you log in to an app using your Facebook account, the developer typically asks for access to information the social network has. Sometimes it’s just your name and email address. Other times, it’s your location and your friends’ data too.
All this is pretty much what any app developer that works with Facebook was allowed to do until 2015, when Facebook prevented app developers from accessing friends’ data. Everything else, though, is still fair game.
Facebook says its rules specify that developers can’t share the information they receive with other firms. That’s where the problem with Kogan and Cambridge Analytica comes up.
The company has an app review process it puts developers through. Once they’re cleared, things are A-OK.
You hand your information over to app developers all the time. Don’t like it? Think before you click. And read the requests from app developers more carefully.
Facebook, by the way, is hoping to stop the next Cambridge Analytica. It’s offered a bounty to anyone who finds apps that misuse Facebook data. The company has also revamped its tools to help you identify which apps have access to your data, as well as those to strengthen security of your profile. Facebook also made it easier to download data it has on you.
Zuckerberg himself said it might.
“I’m actually not sure we shouldn’t be regulated,” he said in an interview with CNN on March 21. “The question is, what is the right regulation?”
He answered that question on April 6, saying he supports the Honest Ads Act, a proposed law that would require tech companies to disclose how political ads are targeted and how much they cost.
Regardless of whether that bill becomes a law, there’s one thing we know for sure: The honeymoon between the tech industry and government is over. After decades of (mostly) treating tech companies as favored children, legislators and government regulators are increasingly taking a tougher stance against them.
Already, this scandal has renewed calls for more regulation.
“This latest fiasco could reignite the debate within the Beltway and EU around a tighter regulatory environment Facebook and its social platform brethren could face going forward,” Daniel Ives, an analyst at GBH Insights, wrote in a note to investors right after the controversy erupted. “This represents another critical period for Facebook to hand hold and assure its users and regulators around tighter content standards and platform security in light of this latest PR nightmare.”
Facebook also faces an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over whether it violated a 2011 consent decree. Companies that have settled previous FTC actions, the US agency said, must comply with FTC order provisions imposing privacy and data security requirements.
“Accordingly, the FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook,” the agency said in a statement on March 26. “Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices.”
The consent decree required that Facebook must get users to agree to and must notify them about the social network sharing their data.
