Facebook says it has suspended Canadian data firm AggregateIQ over alleged involvement with SCL and the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal

Carl Meyer / National Observer :

National Observer 2018-04-08 Carl Meyer

Context & Ripple Effects

Three weeks after Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica over lied-about data retention, the net widens to AggregateIQ, the Canadian firm alleged to have worked for SCL — the parent network behind the Cambridge Analytica operation. The move signals Facebook is treating the scandal as an ecosystem problem, not a single-vendor problem.

That framing matters because AggregateIQ's alleged role sits upstream of the misuse itself: if the Canadian shop built the targeting tooling for SCL, then cutting off Cambridge Analytica alone leaves the capability intact. The related coverage shows where this leads — scrutiny of the whole third-party data-analytics supply chain attached to Facebook's platform.

First-order effects

AggregateIQ loses access to Facebook's platform, severing the data pipeline that allegedly connected it to SCL and the Cambridge Analytica work.
Every other firm in the SCL orbit now faces the same exclusion risk that took down Cambridge Analytica, since Facebook has established affiliation as grounds for suspension.

Second-order effects

The suspension logic spreads beyond politics: months later Facebook applies it to Crimson Hexagon, suspending the social-data firm while investigating its government contracts.
Regulators pick up the thread the platform started — AggregateIQ goes on to receive the first GDPR-related notice tied to the scandal, turning a corporate suspension into a legal proceeding.

Third-order effects

Suspension hardens into Facebook's default enforcement instrument against third-party data firms, extended by October to Russia's Social Data Hub — platform governance substituting for external audit of the data-analytics industry.
Political consultancies and social-data vendors learn their business is structurally dependent on platform goodwill: any firm whose model relies on retaining or repurposing social data can be cut off unilaterally, reshaping who can operate in election analytics at all.

The trend: Platform suspensions are becoming the primary enforcement mechanism against the political data-analytics industry, with privacy regulators following the trail Facebook's exclusions open.

Discussion

@carolecadwalla Carole Cadwalladr on x
Also America: AIQ worked on your elections too! They've just been suspended by Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. They're hugely important in Brexit but they also worked for John Bolton, Thom Tillis, for Ted Cruz & Mercer-affiliated PACs.... http://twitter.com/..…
@carolecadwalla Carole Cadwalladr on x
BIG news. HUGE news. Facebook suspends AggregateIQ. The data firm Vote Leave spent £2.9 million with. VL's chief strategist Dom Cummings: “We couldn't have done it without them.” http://tinyurl.com/...
@carolecadwalla Carole Cadwalladr on x
Here it is. The screenshot that got scrubbed from history. This was deleted from AIQ's site after we put our questions to it. pic.twitter.com/xPc2AfPaGR
@profcarroll David Carroll on x
Facebook suspended AggregateIQ, the SCL Elections licensee embroiled in accusations of helping leave campaigns cheat on Brexit referendum spending and worse. https://www.nationalobserver.com/ ...
@carolecadwalla Carole Cadwalladr on x
This is where @chrisinsilico revealed AIQ's deep, deep links to Cambridge Analytica. And here's the documents that he gave to Parliament: https://www.parliament.uk/... https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
@carolecadwalla Carole Cadwalladr on x
This really is massive. AIQ is right at the very heart of Brexit. It was used by four different campaigns: Vote Leave, BeLeave, Veterans for Britain & the DUP. pic.twitter.com/2vD5kHpHo3
@carolecadwalla Carole Cadwalladr on x
...and it's already at the centre of another scandal. If you haven't already, please read @shahmiruk's story of how Vote Leave used BeLeave as an overspending vehicle. He showed such bravery coming forward. And has been treated by govt with such contempt https://www.theguardian.c…
@nygovcuomo Andrew Cuomo on x
It is increasingly clear that social media has become a key medium for dangerous foreign influence in our elections, and social media companies have a responsibility to do everything they can to stop it. http://www.nytimes.com/...
@senblumenthal Richard Blumenthal on x
Tiptoeing toward transparency is not good enough. Fulsome, broad reform - imposing full disclosure and screening - is necessary to restore trust and meet Facebook's responsibility. http://www.nytimes.com/...
@govtrack GovTrack. on x
Here's our summary of the bill Facebook now endorses: http://www.govtrack.us/... http://twitter.com/...
@mosseri Adam Mosseri on x
We're requiring verification for advertisers to run political ads and for pages with large follower bases to post at all. We're also launching a public, searchable political ads archive which will include text, images, budgets and demographic audience information for each ad. htt…
@lookner Steve Lookner on x
Zuckerberg announces changes for Facebook political ads, including: —all advertisers must be “verified” —all ads will include who paid for them —you'll be able to see all ads bought by an advertiser Also, managers of all large pages will now need to be “verified” pic.twitter.com/…
@robjective Rob Goldman on x
We said last fall that we're building a new process to verify the identity and location of advertisers running election ads on FB. Today we are announcing three additional initiatives in our work to safeguard elections (1/4) https://newsroom.fb.com/...
@robleathern Rob Leathern on x
This means these political issue ads will also be searchable for 4 years in an ad archive along with pricing/reach/demographics of people who saw them 2/2
@facebook @facebook on x
Soon anyone that sees a political ad on Facebook will see it labeled as such. This label will also include information on who paid for it. People in the US will start to see these labels later this spring, with more countries on the way. http://newsroom.fb.com/...
@mikeisaac @mikeisaac on x
Facebook complying with ads requests from congress is a big deal but this part is monumental: there is an entire secondary market for enormous pages that have gathered millions of followers http://twitter.com/...
@mikeisaac @mikeisaac on x
one guy I talked to got a huge fan base for his issue, and he'd get daily offers to take over his account. 10Gs for like a few hundred thousand followers new owner switches the page content to something like fake stuff around hot button issues like race and the memes go viral
@joshconstine Josh Constine on x
Facebook is essentially implementing the Honest Ads Act before Congress can pass it, giving Zuckerberg a better defense when he testifies next week http://techcrunch.com/...
@robleathern Rob Leathern on x
Important update: Facebook will be expanding our definition of a political ad to include not just ads that refer to the election, but also ads that discuss important political issues 1/2 http://newsroom.fb.com/...

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