Explainer · case A02 · 60 seconds

Cambridge Analytica — 87 million profiles and the 2016 election

01 / 08 · Setup

YOU THOUGHT A LIKE WAS JUST A LIKE.

2013

02 / 08 · Scale

87,000,000

Facebook profiles harvested

300,000 people installed the app. The rest — their friends.

03 / 08 · Reveal

THIS IS YOUR DIGITAL LIFE

a quiz app. author: Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge

04 / 08 · Mechanism

psychometric quiz → friends' data

App

thisisyourdigitallife

Facebook Graph API pre-2015

Cambridge Analytica

OCEAN profiling

Openness · Conscientiousness · Extraversion · Agreeableness · Neuroticism

05 / 08 · Use

TRUMP CAMPAIGN. BREXIT.

2013 2016 US election 2018 exposed

87M

profiles

5.8B

ad impressions

$1M

monthly to Cambridge

06 / 08 · Discovery

MARCH 2018

Christopher Wylie

Whistleblower · CA

Carole Cadwalladr

Observer · Guardian

NYT

+ The Observer

Wylie's book "Mindf*ck" (2019)

07 / 08 · Penalty

$5,000,000,000

FTC fine against Facebook (2019) — record

+ $725M class action · $100M SEC · $1.4B Texas AG · $8B shareholder suit

08 / 08

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA

The first case that convinced the world data is a political weapon. Facebook paid a record fine. Cambridge Analytica collapsed.
Case A02 in Big Tech Files.

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