The Cambridge Analytica Debacle: Part 1

Wow, what a time to start a data ethics blog! I woke up last Saturday morning and as usual reached for my phone for the morning dose of Twitter. Surprisingly, instead of threads about the best place to have a coffee in Boulder, CO or the latest adorable puppy video, my feed was almost exclusively filled with two words “Cambridge Analytica”. The data consultancy firm has been on the radar of anyone interested in political disinformation and personal data ethics, especially in the past year with its ties to Brexit and the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign. However, it hadn’t gotten nearly as much attention as it did this weekend, with multiple headlines in mainstream media outlets. So why now? (note: turns out the question was too big to answer in a single post, so expect part 2 soon)

The Facebook Statement

The storm began with a statement made by Facebook which announced the suspension of Cambridge Analytica and its parent company SCL (Strategic Communication Laboratories) from their platform. In the statement, VP and General Council Paul Grewal blamed Cambridge University psychology professor Dr. Alexandr Kogan of failing to comply with Facebook’s personal data policies. In 2015 Dr. Kogan created a personality quiz called “thisisyourdigitallife” that was downloaded 270 000 times and in the process gained access to personal user information such as location, likes, and in some cases information of Facebook friends as well. All this was legal and within the codes of conduct of the platform. Where Dr. Kogan’s fault lies, is in sharing the data he gathered with third party companies (including SCL). The Cambridge Analytica (CA) team also signed a certificate sent to them by Facebook confirming they had deleted all personal data after the quiz results were processed. According to Facebook’s statement, CA failed to comply with the certificate and some of the data was not deleted. A fact the social media company apparently learned about just a few days prior to the statement. Although on the surface this statement seems to come out of concern for its users, it looks more like last-minute damage control of Christopher Wylie’s revelations that went public in The Guardian, on Channel 4, as well as in The Observer, and The New York Times just a day later.

Cambridge Analytica’s Whistleblower

Former CA data scientist Christopher Wylie made multiple headlines on Sunday as the self-proclaimed whistleblower of “Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool”. Reading his interview in the Guardian was disturbing to me for two reasons.

Firstly, was the information itself. Wylie provided journalist Carol Cadwalladr with a detailed account of his recruitment by Steve Bannon, who was vice president of CA at the time. With Bannon’s blessing, CA utilized Wylie’s model on the data Dr Kogan had gathered (from 50 million Facebook accounts!), microtargeted users, and send them sensational and divisive political rhetoric. Bannon himself is closely connected to the Mercer family (conservative billionaire father-daughter duo Robert and Rebecca) who funded his original project Breitbart News and were eager to invest in CA’s effective digital tool that would further their political agenda. This is not new information in itself, but it is a first hand account of the ease and excitement with which data scientists jumped at the opportunity to use personal data for political manipulation. In Wylie’s words “It was an instance of – if you don’t ask questions you won’t get answers you don’t like”. A sinister echo of the way human rights violations are justified in authoritarian regimes.

The second reason that the Guardian piece made me uneasy, is the romanticized portrayal of Christopher Wylie. In the article, he is described as “clever, funny, bitchy, profound, intellectually ravenous, compelling. A master storyteller. A politicker. A data science nerd”, and by himself as “the gay Canadian vegan who somehow ended up creating ‘Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare mindfuck tool'”. Whistleblowing is a key element in  ensuring that democratic processes are not corrupted and it is not my intention to deflate its importance. However, this portrayal of Wylie suggests his redeeming quality is simply being a young misguided liberal, who has come back to the right side of the issue. From this perspective, it becomes justified to initiate a game of hot potato, where each of the parties responsible throws the blame onto someone else. Wylie blames Facebook and the Trump Campaign; Facebook blames Cambridge Analytica and Dr. Alexandr Kogan; Cambridge Analytica blames Facebook.

Not to mention that the cultural clash all these actors amplified then leaked into the scandal as well. To illustrate this, as a response to the Guardian article, Twitter users (including Julian Assange) were quick to point out President Obama had also used microtargeting of potential voters online. This lead to multiple debates between liberals and conservatives on the accuracy of the statements, with many claiming this is just another campaign to sabotage President Trump (read any Twitter thread involving CA and President Trump and you will find multiple of those comments).

The overwhelming amount of information and differing views leaves me and I suspect many others fatigued. As social media researcher Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) put it very aptly in her recent Wired article “The most effective forms of censorship today involve meddling with trust and attention, not muzzling speech itself”. It is ironically social media again, that dilutes a personal data ethics scandal and could let those responsible sneak away while everyone is busy arguing. This is a dangerous trend that makes citizens vulnerable to oligarchic and authoritarian control. The most important point for me, is it is necessary to stay focused on ensuring ethics is an indispensable element of personal data analytics as a long term strategy. It is up to us as users to demand clear regulation and accountability for breaches of our digital rights, both from big tech companies and from individual data analysts such as Christopher Wylie. We should not let ourselves be distracted.

What comes next

In the second part, I will focus on Facebook and CA’s responses to the media storm that followed the Guardian article and Channel 4’s documentary, as well as the worrying possible connection between CA and Russian oil company Lukoil. Even as I am writing this more information keeps coming to light (such as official investigations now being opened into CA both in the UK and US). The full picture is far from clear, so bear with me as I try to catch up with it all. Comments and discussions are very welcome, as this is just my take on the story.

Until next time!