On Sunday, The Guardian (UK) ran a much-ballyhooed “expose” about the nefarious technological activities of Trump data firm Cambridge Analytica. That firm was owned by the Mercer family, and former Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon had a stake as well; Cambridge Analytica’s original client in the 2016 election cycle was Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). According to The Guardian and its source, one Christopher Wylie, Cambridge used sophisticated data gathering to amass a huge database of information about potential voters — exactly the same thing the Obama team did in 2012 and was widely praised for doing. But somehow it’s supremely nefarious when Trump’s campaign did it in 2016, even if they did nothing illegal.
What, exactly, did Cambridge do? They supposedly contracted with Global Science Research to issue a personality quiz; in order for you to take the quiz, you had to give them access to your Facebook profile. They then cross-referenced personality tendencies with politics. First, this isn’t particularly shocking or particularly sophisticated. Second, Cambridge Analytica claims they didn’t use data from GSR.
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