Sorry about the ominous title but there is a concern around what’s happening in the digital world specifically relating to social media. If you own Facebook stock and recently saw $60 billion get wiped off the books, it’s important to understand what is going on. Here’s my super simplified FAQ.
Who is Cambridge Analytica?
Founded in 2013, Cambridge Analytica (CA) is a privately held data research and marketing company that was created as a commercial solution with the goal of supporting US politics. It’s partly owned by the Robert Mercer family who also happens to be a backer of Breitbart.com and Trump. Cambridge Analytica was involved in over 50 US political races since 2014.
How Did Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Start Working Together?
The Cambridge Analytica relationship began with Ted Cruz in 2015 where he utilized its services during the Republican primaries. From there, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner and Giles Parscale, Trump’s Director of Digital, went to Facebook and partnered with them to create a digital command and control data operation.
Where Did They Get the Personally Identifiable Information?
Based on media reports, Dr. Aleksander Kogan and his GSR (Global Science Research), paid people using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to do a “personality assessment” on Facebook. The code used in the app exposed information of approximately 270,000 people and their entire social graph. GSR then created a database out of that information and shared it with Cambridge Analytica, who was then able to expand this to approximately 50 million US Facebook users.
How Will This Impact Digital Marketing and Social Media?
Facebook has seen a ~$60B drop in their books because of a decline in their share value. We’re also seeing discussions about scaling back advertising spend while this issue blows over. I believe this will have a chilling effect on our industry unless Facebook and potentially a third party investigative body gets to the bottom of this.
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