Facebook suspends Trump- and Brexit-affiliated data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica after reports it and affiliated psychologist lied about data retention
Facebook's suspension of SCL and Cambridge Analytica is the opening move in what became a year-long enforcement sweep: within weeks the company also suspended Canadian firm AggregateIQ over alleged SCL ties (the AggregateIQ suspension), later paused Crimson Hexagon while probing its government contracts, and disabled Social Data Hub profiles in October. The stated trigger — reports that the firm and an affiliated psychologist lied about data retention — puts platform access itself on the line as the enforcement mechanism.
The stakes are existential for the named firms rather than reputational: Cambridge Analytica, whose political analytics work is tied to both the Trump and Brexit efforts in the coverage, was dependent on Facebook data access, and the platform's willingness to pull it signaled that no analytics client relationship outranks data-misuse allegations.
First-order effects
SCL and Cambridge Analytica lose access to Facebook's platform — the data pipeline underpinning their political analytics business — effective immediately, with Facebook publicly framing the suspension around the data-retention misrepresentations.
Second-order effects
Facebook extended the same enforcement logic across the analytics ecosystem, suspending AggregateIQ over alleged SCL involvement and reviewing Crimson Hexagon's government contracts, meaning any firm with SCL or Cambridge Analytica ties faced platform audit.
Third-order effects
Cambridge Analytica's shutdown — attributed in coverage to lost clients and mounting legal fees — shows the endgame: a political data firm cut off from platform data cannot survive, so platform access becomes the de facto license for the entire political-analytics industry.
The trend: Social platforms are consolidating into de facto regulators of the political data-analytics industry, with suspension from platform data access functioning as the industry's binding enforcement mechanism.
We have suspended Cambridge Analytica from our platform for a clear violation our policies. They cannot buy ads or administer its clients' pages. http://newsroom.fb.com/...
So Cambridge Analytica fraudulently obtained Facebook user data and then used it to run election ads on Donald Trump's behalf http://newsroom.fb.com/... http://twitter.com/...
I have filed a legal claim in the UK against Cambridge Analytica/SCL under the Data Protection Act. Thank you to all those who have backed me in this effort. And special thanks to @RaviNa1k pic.twitter.com/RxPRNs3J02
So @profcarroll challenged Facebook (for not protecting his data under EU law). It moved forward today. And now Facebook cut off Cambridge Analytica. http://newsroom.fb.com/... http://twitter.com/...
To be clear, we are still looking into these issues so will share more as we get deeper. But in the meantime, we felt obligated to act to protect our users.
Waking up to the news that Facebook has suspended Cambridge Analytica today? TWO YEARS after it discovered massive data breach? Wondering why now? Answers coming soon... http://www.bbc.com/...
This is a big deal. Cambridge Analytica accessed Facebook user data w/o authorization, using that data for the tailored voter analysis that decided the 2016 election. http://twitter.com/...
FB said Kogan had requested and gained access to information from 270,000 FB members after they chose to download his app. The app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction and billed itself on FB as a research app used by psychologists." http://www.washingtonpos…
The unwarranted mystique that the press has created around Cambridge Analytica and their ‘psychographic’ targeting bullshit is the biggest boon those charlatans have ever enjoyed. https://twitter.com/...
You know all of those “personality quizzes” people used to take on Facebook? The data from them fed an illicit effort by the Trump Campaign to target voters and get him elected. http://twitter.com/...
Cambridge Analytica suspended from Facebook for use of private data from a ‘personality profile app’ http://newsroom.fb.com/... ‘psychology professor Dr Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app to SCL/Cambridge Analytica’
Well finally - might be a little bit too late for facebook. They have already totally lost control over their platform. More and more people are leaving the platform because of endless violations of their digital space. http://twitter.com/...
So brave of you to take this stand for democracy at 9 PM eastern on a Friday night two years after the election. Thomas Jefferson salutes you. http://twitter.com/...
This is a big , bad story for Facebook . Many questions about *why* when aFB knew about the breach of contract, they were not more aggressive about checking that the data had been deleted ...also - Cambridge Analytica had unauthorized access to data during its Trump campaign http…
Nothing makes sense in timing. They just found out in last few days after all of this time? And they're still suspending without verifying? And it just happening to be Friday night after press has called it a week? huh. http://twitter.com/...
When I visited Cambridge Analytica nearly three years ago, they wouldn't explain how their data jumped from social-media apps to a voter file. Now we learn: they were laundering it from Facebook profiles. https://newsroom.fb.com/... https://bloom.bg/2hJ9fUa
For some essential background on how Cambridge Analytica's deception came to light, read this MoJo piece from December on @profcarroll's lawsuit http://www.motherjones.com/...
This is pretty interesting. Cambridge Analytica has been credited with helping both the Trump campaign and Brexit win their elections. Since then, the UK-based company also opened an office in NYC to help do similar psychographics work for brand marketing. http://twitter.com/...