Cambridge Analytica and #DeleteFacebook
If you’re like me, it can be hard to keep track of the news cycle and read extensively about every scandal that seemingly develops everyday. On top of that, it is hard to understand the convoluted histories of scandals, such as the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook one.
This article aims to help you understand what is going on, and what you can do about it. First, here is what Cambridge Analytica did, as outlined by Vox.
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Cambridge Analytica, a firm based in London, gained access to 50 million Facebook users’ data. Cambridge Analytica was connected to the campaign of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election.
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Steve Bannon, former white house advisor to Trump, is the person that connects the Trump campaign with Cambridge Analytica. Bannon was the vice president of the firm.
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Aleksandr Kogan, a Russian-American researcher at Cambridge University, acquired the Facebook data. He then provided the data to the firm, which violates Facebook’s terms of service.
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Kogan built a quiz for users on Facebook to take. The quiz not only gathered data from the people who took the quiz, but from those people’s friends as well.
This data included biographical information such as your relationship status, and it included likes and dislikes such as that you like Ford cars and the music of Taylor Swift.
The bottom line is that the Trump campaign was able to use this data to increase online fundraising, reach undecided voters and increase voter turnout on election day, according to NPR.
This scandal has caused people to reevaluate their use of social media sites like Facebook. There is even a movement, with its own hashtag, to #DeleteFacebook. But would deleting your Facebook account actually do anything?
One consideration is that the damage has already been done. Your Facebook data could very possibly been used for a political gain. However, that doesn’t mean the same thing couldn’t happen again. The ball is in Facebook’s court to prove to the world that they take privacy seriously.
If you delete your Facebook there is still Instagram and Whatsapp, which are both owned by Facebook.