Social media has long ceased to be just a place to share photos and funny comments. They have become an arena for political battles, where data is the new weapon and users are unwilling victims. It is this dark side of the internet that became the focus of a huge scandal that shook the foundations of Facebook and revealed shocking practices.
Cambridge Analytica Revelations
The world learned about Cambridge Analytica – a company that allegedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidential election, and also played a role in Brexit. This case quickly became the subject of investigations across the ocean, which led to the removal of the company's CEO, Alexander Nix.
What actually happened? It turned out that Cambridge Analytica had collected personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users. The goal? To create psychological profiles of voters and influence their political views. Sounds like science fiction, but it's a fact.
Facebook: The Big Data Provider
The main data provider in this scenario was Facebook. It was there that the gold mine of information that Cambridge Analytica was supposed to use was discovered. The company partnered with Alexander Kogan, a professor of psychology at the University of Cambridge. Kogan developed an application for Facebook. Through it, he managed to collect detailed data about users.
To obtain this data, Kogan paid users to fill out surveys and give access to their personal data. But this is just the beginning. Thanks to Facebook's terms of use at the time, Kogan not only collects information about users, but also about their friends. This way he gets a huge amount of information about their interests, habits and reactions.
Kogan assured Facebook that he was collecting the information for academic purposes, not for trade. But after about 270,000 people downloaded his software, he provided Cambridge Analytica with the profiles of approximately 50 million users. Almost none of them knew that their data would be used for political manipulation. What happens next?
Psychological Weapon in Action
After collecting the data, Cambridge Analytica began to create psychological profiles of users. Then, they began to control the information flows around them, creating content that would change their perception of reality. Videos, articles... everything to change people's minds.
According to Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, users should not realize that they are being subjected to propaganda. The goal was to ensure that the content looks authentic and convincing. Even if they doubt it… well, too late.
Reactions and Consequences
Cambridge Analytica denies all charges, and Alexander Kogan claims that he did nothing illegal. And Facebook also refuses to admit guilt. After the scandal escalated, the social network removed Cambridge Analytica, Kogan, and Wylie from its platform. But the damage is done.
Facebook's market value plummeted by about $40 billion, which was the biggest loss in the last four years. Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Facebook, has yet to make an official comment. What does all this mean for us, the ordinary users? How long will we be just pawns in the big political game?
In the end… this case shows how important it is to be careful with the information we share online. It also questions the responsibility of social media for the data they collect and how they can be used.
All this makes us think – is freedom on the web just an illusion? Are we being watched more than we think? The questions are many, and the answers… they are still being sought.