Facebook–Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal and The Fallout So Far - Innovation Village

The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involves the collection of personally identifiable information of up to 87 million Facebook users that Cambridge Analytica began collecting in 2014.

In March, a cache of documents was obtained from inside Cambridge Analytica, the data firm principally owned by the right-wing donor Robert Mercer. The documents proved that the firm, where the former Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon was a board member, used data improperly obtained from Facebook to build voter profiles. The news put Cambridge under investigation and thrust Facebook into its biggest crisis ever. Here’s a guide to our coverage.

MARCH 17

Harvesting data and testing election law

It is reported that in 2014 contractors and employees of Cambridge Analytica, eager to sell psychological profiles of American voters to political campaigns, acquired the private Facebook data of tens of millions of users — the largest known leak in Facebook history.

There was more. Our article first showed how Cambridge received warnings from its own lawyer, Laurence Levy, as it employed European and Canadian citizens on campaigns, potentially violating American election law. The article also found that tranches of raw data still existed beyond Facebook’s control.

What was the Russia link?

In a companion piece, it’s also reported that people at Cambridge Analytica and its British affiliate, the SCL Group, were in contact with executives from Lukoil, the Kremlin-linked oil giant, as Cambridge built its Facebook-derived profiles. Lukoil was interested in the ways data was used to target American voters, according to two former company insiders. SCL and Lukoil denied that the talks were political in nature and said the oil giant never became a client.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, left, with Vagit Alekperov, head of the oil giant Lukoil, which was in talks with Cambridge Analytica employees

MARCH 18

Anger on both sides of the Atlantic

The articles drew an instant response in Washington, where lawmakers demanded that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, testify before Congress. Democrats looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election — already interested in Cambridge’s role in providing analytics to the Trump campaign — said they would seek an investigation into the leak. They were echoed by lawmakers in Britain investigating Cambridge Analytica’s role in disinformation and the country’s referendum to leave the European Union.

MARCH 20

Bribes, entrapment and a suspension

Cambridge suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix, after a British television channel released an undercover video in which he suggested that the company had used seduction and bribery to entrap politicians and influence foreign elections. In Washington, the Federal Trade Commission moved to investigate whether Facebook had violated an early agreement to safeguard user data.

Alexander Nix, the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, left his offices through the back door the day he was suspended.

MARCH 21

Facebook faces a reckoning

It is also reported that a growing number of Facebook users, including the singer Cher, deleted their accounts — and broke news of the departure of Facebook’s top security official, who had clashed with other executives on how to handling discontent over the platform’s role in spreading disinformation. The hashtag #DeleteFacebook began trending on Twitter.

After remaining silent for days — spurring another social media hashtag, #WheresZuck? — Mr. Zuckerberg later on spoke about steps Facebook was taking to address users’ anger.

MARCH 23

New Trump adviser, old Cambridge connection

As Facebook reeled, investigations delved into the relationship between Cambridge Analytica and John Bolton, the conservative hawk named national security adviser by President Trump. News broke that in 2014, Cambridge provided Mr. Bolton’s “super PAC” with early versions of its Facebook-derived profiles — the technology’s first large-scale use in an American election.

MARCH 24

Another look at ‘Brexit’

There were reported allegations that the 2016 “Brexit” campaign used a Cambridge Analytica contractor to help skirt election spending limits. The story implicated two senior advisers to Prime Minister Theresa May. Testifying to Parliament a few days later, a former Cambridge employee, Christopher Wylie, contended that the company helped swing the results in favor of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

MARCH 28

The Silicon Valley spy contractor

The London offices of Cambridge Analytica, which had help from at least one employee at Palantir Technologies, a company founded by the Trump supporter Peter Thiel.

In another report, showed how an employee at Palantir Technologies — an intelligence contractor founded by the Trump backer and tech investor Peter Thiel — helped Cambridge harvest Facebook data. The article reported that Palantir and Cambridge executives briefly considered a formal partnership to work on political campaigns. Though the deal fell through, a Palantir employee continued working with Cambridge to figure out how to obtain data for psychographic profiles. Palantir officials said the employee did so in a strictly personal capacity.

APRIL 4

How many were affected?

It’s reported that Cambridge harvested data from over 50 million Facebook users. But at the bottom of a company announcement about new privacy features, Facebook’s chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, issued a new estimate for the number of users who were affected: as many as 87 million, most of them in the United States.

APRIL 8

‘You are the product’

Amid the crisis, one set of voices remained notably absent: Facebook users whose data was harvested. So we found some, and their reactions ranged from anger to resigned annoyance at how tech giants use personal information. As one of the affected Facebook users put it, “You are the product on the internet.”

Another report shared new details on the app used to collect data for Cambridge Analytica. It was no simple Facebook quiz, as many had assumed. Rather, it was attached to a lengthy psychology questionnaire hosted by Qualtrics, a company that manages online surveys. The first step for those filling out the questionnaire was to grant access to their Facebook profiles. Once they did, an app then harvested their data and that of their friends.

APRIL 10