What was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and what did it change?
Only 270,000 people downloaded a quiz app, yet data on at least 30 million Facebook users was collected.
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Which one is it?
The Cambridge Analytica scandal was the revelation, in March 2018, that the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had collected personal data on millions of Facebook users for political advertising without informed consent. It changed how many people thought about privacy on social media.
The data came through an app called "This Is Your Digital Life", developed in 2013 by data scientist Aleksandr Kogan and his company. It asked questions to build of its users, and it also collected personal data on those users' Facebook friends. Facebook allowed the app to collect information not only from the people who answered the survey but also from their friends. That is how the numbers grew: data was collected on at least 30 million users, while only 270,000 people downloaded the app. Cambridge Analytica claimed it had collected only 30 million profiles, but Facebook later confirmed that it had data on potentially over 87 million users.
The story broke when a , the former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie, came forward in March 2018. The Guardian and The New York Times published articles simultaneously on 17 March 2018, and more than $100 billion was knocked off Facebook's in days.
What happened next? Facebook apologised, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the US Congress on 10 April 2018. Cambridge Analytica filed for in May 2018. In July 2019 the US Federal Trade Commission voted 3–2 to approve a $5 billion fine to settle its investigation.
The scandal sparked increased public interest in privacy and in social media's influence on politics.
Quiz me
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Recap
An app collected data on friends of its users too, so far more people were affected than had agreed to anything.
💡 A trick to remember it · One quiz, a thousand friends-of-friends: the door you open for yourself can open for everyone standing behind you.
Surprising fact · The data on at least 30 million users came from an app that only 270,000 people downloaded.
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (18 claims) cites at least one of these.