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Why Did Facebook Sell Data to Cambridge Analytica?
In a nutshell, Facebook sold users’ data to a data company called Cambridge Analytica, which used it to target political advertisements. The company was called “sketchy” by some employees in 2015. Facebook removed its platform from the firm’s use after the scandal broke. But why did Facebook sell its users’ data to Cambridge Analytica? How did they get access to data? And what can we do about it?
Mark Zuckerberg
A suit filed by the District of Columbia has named Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as personally culpable in the hacking of the social networking website’s user data. The company, which is now defunct, accessed data on 87 million Facebook users and used it to manipulate voters in the 2016 presidential election. On the same subject : How to Delete a Post on Facebook. The suit, filed in December 2018, has been the subject of much debate, with some denying the data breach.
But even in the midst of these questions, the company and Zuckerberg were unfazed. The first revelation was that a third-party app scraped Facebook users’ data, which was later sold to Cambridge Analytica. In the end, the company says the emails were cherry-picked to make the case for Six4Three. The next year, Facebook said a privacy bug in a third-party app caused a strategic risk. During this time, the company fired two executives: Michael Vernal, the director of engineering, and Avichal Garg, the director of product management.
Robert Mercer
The Facebook privacy scandal has rocked the political world, especially since a billionaire Republican donor, Robert Mercer, provided the funding to Cambridge Analytica, which used that information to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Mercer’s daughter, Rebekah, met with him in Colorado during the period when Cambridge Analytica was collecting information on American voters. To see also : How to Change Facebook Page Name. The Mercers also met with Trump’s campaign and his rival, Hillary Clinton, in an effort to get as many votes as possible.
The revelations have led to a sell-off of Facebook shares, wiping $9 billion off Zuckerberg’s personal wealth. The New York Times has reported that copies of the data harvested by Cambridge Analytica can be found on the Internet, despite Facebook’s efforts to make it disappear. The New York Times’ reporting team also viewed copies of the data harvested for Cambridge Analytica, and the New York Times’ article highlights some of these data that are still available.
Robert Mercer’s ties to Cambridge Analytica
The daughters of Republican mega-donor Robert Mercer have been under scrutiny for their ties to the controversial data-analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica. The company, which worked on President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, has caused a global privacy scandal and is facing Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in New York. On the same subject : How to Link Facebook to Instagram. In late 2017, the Mercers bought their father’s stake in the pro-Trump website Breitbart News. Since then, they have been implicated in the investigation into Russia.
The Mercers have a long history of illegal political spending, and their ties to Cambridge Analytica have been exposed in the wake of the 2016 election. Mercer’s investment in Cambridge Analytica led to the company’s creation and a board that included his daughter Rebekah Mercer and longtime associate Steve Bannon. The newly published emails reveal that Cambridge Analytica employees knew they were working for the Mercers, and that they were expected to work for their Mercer-backed super PACs.
Mark Zuckerberg’s role in data privacy scandal
Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has filed a lawsuit against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in connection with the data privacy scandal. The lawsuit alleges that Zuckerberg participated in key decisions regarding the company, despite the dangers involved. Facebook, for its part, has denied all of the allegations in the privacy lawsuit. Zuckerberg has the option of dismissing himself as a defendant, but he has defended his role in the scandal.
A lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia against Mark Zuckerberg alleges that the Facebook CEO participated in the Cambridge Analytica data breach. The suit claims that Zuckerberg was involved in the decisions and direction of the company’s internal program, resulting in the mass unauthorized release of users’ data. If this is true, the fine could be as much as $1.5 billion. A case like this will likely lead to further investigations into Facebook’s privacy practices.
Facebook’s knowledge of Cambridge Analytica’s data scraping practices
While Facebook’s knowledge of Cambridge Analytica data scraping practices was previously unspecified, an internal memo from December 2015 revealed that it was aware of the firm’s activities months before the company publicly admitted them. In this memo, Facebook employees discussed a possible investigation of Cambridge Analytica’s data scraping practices. The memo linked to a document previously leaked by the District of Columbia Attorney General.
The correspondence revealed by the US government lawsuit was leaked and reveals that Facebook knew about Cambridge Analytica’s data scraping before the scandal broke. In fact, the company first knew about CA’s data scraping practices as early as September 2015. The first article about Cambridge Analytica’s data practices was published in December 2015 by The Guardian. As a result, Facebook was able to quickly respond to the scandal.
