Cambridge Analytica whistleblower: 'We spent $1m harvesting millions of Facebook profiles'

Hi steemians,

just saw this video and wanted to share it with the community.
It shows you how we are manipulated by giving away our data, thoughts, feelings, etc.

pic source

Data analysts of the organization Cambridge Analytica collected about 50 million private user data of the social network Facebook in 2014 and developed an analysis software based on it.

This was to predict the behavior of US voters and find out their preferences and fears to support the then-presidential candidate and today's US President Donald Trump in the election campaign. However, the data was unlawfully disclosed, as online magazines of The New York Times and also Facebook itself announced.

Via a separate app called "thisisyourdigitallife", the data analysts were able to access the actually protected personal data. Therefore, several hundred thousand US citizens were paid for a study that revealed their data. The app had to be installed on users' devices as part of the study and worked like spyware. It collected the data of the Facebook friends unnoticed and without permission. The app was developed by computer scientist Aleksandr Kogan in addition to his work at Cambridge University.

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In a statement, Facebook tried to refute the allegations by saying it was not an unauthorized data leak. The users had signed and installed the app in their message. No passwords were stolen or systems infiltrated. However, the company did not pursue the rights of the unknowing Facebook contacts - except that the disclosure of collected data to third parties violates the guidelines. According to Facebook, about 270,000 people installed the software called "The Science App".

In an interview with British magazine The Guardian, Christopher Wylie, co-founder of Cambridge Analytica, said, "We used Facebook to collect millions of user profiles, and we built models to target their inner demons. That was the bases on which the whole company was built. "For him, the company was a kind of propaganda machine." Controlling all the information flows around your opponent, you can influence how they perceive the area and how they behave and react. " he says, Wylie worked at Cambridge Analytica until 2014.

The company has also received $ 15 million in investment through this strategy. These came from Robert Mercer, a billionaire with a conservative background. Wylie was the gay vegan Canadian who built Bannon's "mindfuck psychological warfare tool," the interviewer said.

Here is the video to the story:

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