Cambridge Analytica is Shutting Down

rgMekanic

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In a press release on their website today, the company who harvested the data of 87 million people from Facebook is shutting down. Since the story first broke in March of the massive data breach, the scandal has cause Facebook to lose $60 billion in market share in 2 days, cause Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress, and changed the privacy policies for the better on tons of websites.

Some excerpts from the press release:

Over the past several months, Cambridge Analytica has been the subject of numerous unfounded accusations and, despite the Company’s efforts to correct the record, has been vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas.

Legal where? And where were these attempts to "correct the record?"

While this decision was extremely painful for Cambridge Analytica’s leaders, they recognize that it is all the more difficult for the Company’s dedicated employees who learned today that they likely would be losing their jobs as a result of the damage caused to the business by the unfairly negative media coverage. Despite the Company’s precarious financial condition, Cambridge Analytica intends to fully meet its obligations to its employees, including with respect to notice periods, severance terms, and redundancy entitlements.

Cry me a river. I love seeing them shut down, but part of me fears that they will just take all their data and re-open under a different name to avoid the controversy. At least they never got their Cryptocurrency ICO off the ground.
 
they will just take all their data and re-open under a different name to avoid the controversy. At least they never got their Cryptocurrency ICO off the ground.

There ya go, that's the correct answer. Too much money to be made off of selling people to give it up just like that. Without any laws or punitive actions in place, this is pretty much what I expect to happen to get their work out of the lime light.
 
They have already changed their name and reopened as Oxford Ratiocination.


Not really, the new name is Emerdata Limited. Different duck, same bark.
 
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Seriously read the headline at first as "Cambridge Analytica is shutting down to massive profits in March"
 
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Not that i think what they were doing was right, but I don’t believe Mark Z. If what they were doing was really illegal they would be facing charges right now. Not for a second do I think thay are the only people using FB data to sell to people. They only reason why this was brought to anyone attention is because of who they were selling it to.
 
Typically when you're working for black ops under the USA or Russia, there's a good chance you're fucked if you get outed.
 
When are the guys at [H] gonna start proof reading their work? Facebook didn't lose $60 Billion in market share. wtf is going on here....
 
I wish the employees and their families nothing but the worst life has to offer.
 
The issue here isn't Cambridge Analytica. It's not even Facebook (though that's much closer). It's people who mindlessly put all of their personal data and activities online for others to exploit. Honestly, a pox on all of the houses of everyone involved.
 
The issue here isn't Cambridge Analytica. It's not even Facebook (though that's much closer). It's people who mindlessly put all of their personal data and activities online for others to exploit. Honestly, a pox on all of the houses of everyone involved.

While I don't disagree, the onus on enterprises (and government agencies!) to protect data in their care is most certainly not focused enough. People need to be educated on information security and those that handle the public's data need to increase their vigilance a few orders of magnitude.
 
They'll just rebrand under a new name and continue on. Just like every other business that gets in trouble, because, hey, the board isn't responsible for the actions of the corporation......
 
Honestly. I never saw the problem here. The sheep put their entire lives online. Why can't the wolves sweep in and take all that data and turn it into something sellable. Genius if you ask me. I'd honestly want to be in on that as it looks like the wave of the future for business.
 
...just when the work done for other parties other than the Republicans are starting to be revealed....
 
Not that i think what they were doing was right, but I don’t believe Mark Z. If what they were doing was really illegal they would be facing charges right now. Not for a second do I think thay are the only people using FB data to sell to people. They only reason why this was brought to anyone attention is because of who they were selling it to.

No, they aren't. Hell, they aren't even the first entity to do this EXACT thing. You see, it's only viewed negatively when Donald Trump does it. When Barrack Obama does it, Facebook give's a wink and a nod and looks the other way. Cambridge Analytica was not the first, they were just on the wrong end of the political specturm.
 
No, they aren't. Hell, they aren't even the first entity to do this EXACT thing. You see, it's only viewed negatively when Donald Trump does it. When Barrack Obama does it, Facebook give's a wink and a nod and looks the other way. Cambridge Analytica was not the first, they were just on the wrong end of the political specturm.

Have you been living under a log? I've included a screen shot of what Zuckerberg has admitted to. Please show me how this is anything similar to what the Obama election campaign participated in.


Mark_Zuckerberg_-_I_want_to_share_an_update_on_the..._Facebook_-_2018-05-03_00.44.03.png

This political tribalism has to end. Wrong is wrong and a lie is a lie.... (this goes for both sides)
 
Honestly. I never saw the problem here. The sheep put their entire lives online. Why can't the wolves sweep in and take all that data and turn it into something sellable. Genius if you ask me. I'd honestly want to be in on that as it looks like the wave of the future for business.

This. They are not breaking any laws doing what they were doing. The moral outrage from so many hypocrites is laughable. How many of you outraged people have a smart phone? How many are using Windows 10? How many use Google for anything?

This whole thing wreaks of a witch hunt. Do not get me wrong. I think what these companies are doing should be illegal given the fact we already know there are far more idiots online giving away a valuable commodity and only whining about it when things like this happen, but then they go right back to using their smart phones, Googling something else, or playing some stupid data gathering game.

Until people grow a pair and stop doing it, nothing is going to change and this will be just another footnote, in a few weeks, while things revert back to the way they are today.
 
As someone who works with a company that creates content and generally is dependent on advertising income - I have to tell you, that the amount of data that our marketing folks have on everyone's habits and their use to sell very targeted advertising spaces on their channels is absolutely terrifying. I could see it being used for a political agenda, and being in Canada, there's an extremely high probability it is being used to target political attack advertisements. Our election up here is just starting for Ontario, and the federal one will be starting not to far after. I don't watch TV anymore, but i'm sure those who do will be properly targeted. I hope this is just the beginning of the end for these types of practices, even if my job is one of the ones that goes.
 
Was it a data breach?
Have you been living under a log? I've included a screen shot of what Zuckerberg has admitted to. Please show me how this is anything similar to what the Obama election campaign participated in.


This political tribalism has to end. Wrong is wrong and a lie is a lie.... (this goes for both sides)

Alright, I'll be the devil's advocate here. I think it is reasonable to say we do not know what Obama's campaign engaged in. In this case, when data mining was mentioned as a campaign tactic there was outrage, shock, and the like. I very distinctly remember the 2012 Obama campaign being roundly applauded for their data mining efforts, with many commentators stating that it surely had a positive effect at the polls.

I, myself, commented that the Democrat campaign in 2012 was far more technologically inclined, and was generally a much "smarter" campaign. I also commented that if the Republicans were going to be accessing voters, they needed to hire some millennials to run that side of the business. That's neither here nor there.

The point is, there was no outrage, no investigations - corporate or otherwise. The 2012 Obama campaign spoke in only generalities about their use of data mining. That's appropriate, since they spent millions developing their stuff, and they ought not be forced to disclose it all, unless there is a legal problem. However, the fact is: we do not know *exactly* what methods were used. I would bet it did not go so far as to be criminally intrusive - which it is not in this case either - but I would not, as others would readily, assume perfectly clean hands.

My point is, while the argument "the other guy did it, so it's ok now" is not one I put a lot of faith in, I think a lot of people are feigning deep personal injury because of the administration in question, not the offending action.
 
No, they aren't. Hell, they aren't even the first entity to do this EXACT thing. You see, it's only viewed negatively when Donald Trump does it. When Barrack Obama does it, Facebook give's a wink and a nod and looks the other way. Cambridge Analytica was not the first, they were just on the wrong end of the political specturm.

when did obama team up with the russians? link?

i dont think them getting in trouble had anything to do with what side of the political spectrum they were on. it had to do with russian involvement.
 
Not that i think what they were doing was right, but I don’t believe Mark Z. If what they were doing was really illegal they would be facing charges right now. Not for a second do I think thay are the only people using FB data to sell to people. They only reason why this was brought to anyone attention is because of who they were selling it to.

You know it can take time to do a full investigation and build a solid case, right? Especially when it comes to issues of newer technology, where judges and juries need to be walked through completely new concepts? It's pretty similar to the whole Mueller thing - in fact, they may even be connected. It's also really challenging to hold individuals in a corporation liable for a corporation's activities, which is why I suspect they shifted everything to a new corp. "Whoops! Can't charge an organization that doesn't exist any longer!"

So, let's hold off on saying these people clearly aren't guilty because they're not facing charges yet.
 
but part of me fears that they will just take all their data and re-open under a different name to avoid the controversy
That's exactly what just happened, dude. They're now Emerdata Limited.
 
So, let's hold off on saying these people clearly aren't guilty because they're not facing charges yet.

I did not mean to suggest no guilt (or guilt, if appropriate) earlier, but rather, I intended only to show the level of skepticism and criticism being levied against the 2016 campaign use of data mining seems inconsistent with the 2012 campaign use of similar information technology. Someone commented that it's a Russian influence that's the difference. I confess, among all the impassioned rhetoric on both sides of the political isle, I'm unclear as to the facts of the matter, and accordingly, do not have an informed opinion on the subject.

As to lack (or presence) of charges being an indicator of guilt or not - I would suggest that's a poor metric. However, if there's a failure to indict by a grand jury, if not a measure of guilt, it's absolutely a measure of evidence. If there isn't enough to successfully indict, guilty or not, there's not enough there to build a case.

Incidentally, we basically only make findings of guilty or not guilty, which is not the same as guilty or innocent - or is it?
 
Was it a data breach?

No. It was a violation of Facebook policy.

newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/suspending-cambridge-analytica
Facebook said:
In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica, a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe. He also passed that data to Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, Inc.
Although Kogan gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels that governed all developers on Facebook at that time, he did not subsequently abide by our rules. By passing information on to a third party, including SCL/Cambridge Analytica and Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, he violated our platform policies. When we learned of this violation in 2015, we removed his app from Facebook and demanded certifications from Kogan and all parties he had given data to that the information had been destroyed. Cambridge Analytica, Kogan and Wylie all certified to us that they destroyed the data.
Several days ago, we received reports that, contrary to the certifications we were given, not all data was deleted. We are moving aggressively to determine the accuracy of these claims. If true, this is another unacceptable violation of trust and the commitments they made. We are suspending SCL/Cambridge Analytica, Wylie and Kogan from Facebook, pending further information.

Also keep in mind that starting in 2014 and being fully implemented in 2015 that Facebook Shut Down Its API For Giving Your Friends’ Data To Apps.

Now I will agree that we do not know the full details of how much or exactly what kind of data the Obama campaign managed to gather. You had to explicitly opt in. Unlike the “thisisyourdigitallife" app that Kogan created. Another key difference is that with the Obama app you had a pretty good idea what this "data" was going to be used for.

obama-campaign-use-tactics-cambridge-analytica
snopes said:
Although the Obama campaign in 2012 did target potential voters using information gathered from Facebook profiles, there were key differences. The Obama for America organization accessed voters’ Facebook information when they logged on to the campaign web site via Facebook. Obama supporters were given a permission screen in which they could approve or deny the request, which clearly came from the Obama campaign.

I also want to point out that you had / have to be totally naive to think that not selling / tracking your data was (is) Facebook's business model. Nothing is free....
 
How was this a "data breach"? This same information was handed to the Obama campaign on a silver platter with help from FB years ago.. Someone else uses same method and now it's labeled as some sort of illicit data mining effort?
 
They are probably just going to shutdown and start a new company with all the data they have and none of the bad PR. A good opportunity to clearout overpaid veteran staff and restructure too.
 
They did nothing different than any of these other companies have been doing with Facebook and other data through 3rd party apps for a decade now.

The faux outrage over this is amusing.

Have you been living under a log? I've included a screen shot of what Zuckerberg has admitted to. Please show me how this is anything similar to what the Obama election campaign participated in.


View attachment 70838

This political tribalism has to end. Wrong is wrong and a lie is a lie.... (this goes for both sides)

Exact same shit. Obama's app was scraping people's friend's pages just the same, the only difference is Facebook was proud to help Obama Your own political tribalism is showing.

when did obama team up with the russians? link?

i dont think them getting in trouble had anything to do with what side of the political spectrum they were on. it had to do with russian involvement.

When did Trump? Oh, right, he didn't. A year and half now you lunatics have been using the alphabet agencies to go on fishing expeditions and still haven't found a damn thing.
 
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For all the people going "But but Obama did it too"

A. That doesn't make it right, then or now. You are engaging in the same stupid bullshit "defense" that you'd hear from a school playground. Knock it off.

B. A lot has changed since 2012. There is a hell of a lot more scrutiny put up on what companies do and how our data is used. People are still idiots with what they share, but we've had both the Target hack and the Equifax breach since 2012. Those events, among others that have happened, have changed how data is talked about and how people look at massive breaches of data.
 
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