Facebook under fire over link to data firm
Lawmakers want tech giant to explain how Cambridge Analytica got info on 50 million
Facebook shares, which have been a key driver of the recent boom in technology, closed down by nearly 7 percent Monday as questions swirl around the tech giant and its connections to a British data analysis firm, Cambridge Analytica.
Alexander Nix, the head of Cambridge Analytica, was captured on video appearing to discuss behind-the-scenes efforts to influence elections around the world.
The social media giant came under heavy fire from lawmakers in the United States and Britain over the weekend after news reports raised questions about whether it allowed third-party developers to access the data of users without their permission — a potential violation of its privacy agreement with the U.S. government.
Overall, the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped as much as 2.5 percent but rallied later to close down 1.84 percent.
Google parent Alphabet was down 3 percent, while Apple Inc., Netflix and retail giant Amazon. com, founded by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, all finished down in the neighborhood of 1.5 percent. Shares of Silicon Valley darling Tesla Inc., closed down 2.42 percent.
Congressional calls for Facebook to testify on Capitol Hill grew louder and more bipartisan Monday, as lawmakers demanded that the tech giant explain how a
data analytics firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign obtained names, “likes” and other personal information on 50 million people.
The increasingly sharp and personal tenor of the requests — many of which sought an appearance by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg — raised the odds for a fresh round of potentially contentious hearings, following lawmakers’ intense questioning of Facebook and two other technology companies last fall.
“While Facebook has pledged to enforce its policies to protect people’s information, questions remain as to whether those policies are sufficient and whether Congress should take action to protect people’s private information,” wrote Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John Neely Kennedy, R-La., in a joint letter to Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A British television station broadcast video Monday apparently showing the head of Cambridge Analytica talking about using bribes, traps involving sex workers and other unethical tactics to swing elections around the world.
The broadcast by Channel 4 News offered no evidence that such methods were used during Cambridge Analytica’s work for the Trump campaign, which paid the firm at least $6 million. But the broadcast sparked a fresh round of questions about a company already embroiled in controversy about its use of personal information from tens of millions of Facebooks users — the vast majority of whom had no idea their names, likes and work histories had been collected for political purposes.
The report, which The
Washington Post has not independently confirmed, relied on surreptitious video recordings of Nix, the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, claiming to have used “a web of shadowy front companies” in pursuit of winning elections. The company on Monday disputed the report and others published over the weekend about the company’s use of massive troves of Facebook data. “Cambridge Analytica strongly denies the claims recently made by The New York Times, the Guardian and Channel 4 News,” the company said on Twitter.
Cambridge Analytica elaborated in a statement quoted by Channel 4 News, saying, “We entirely refute any allegation that Cambridge Analytica or any of its affiliates use entrapment, bribes, or so-called “honey-traps” for any purpose whatsoever . ... We routinely undertake conversations with prospective clients to try to tease out any unethical or illegal intentions.”
According to the video posted by Channel 4 News, Nix appears to suggest the company could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house.” He later added that he favored Ukrainian women in particular: “They are very beautiful, I find that works very well.”
The surreptitiously recorded video also appears to depict conversations involving Nix, Mark Turnbull, the managing director of Cambridge Analytica Political Global, and Alex Tayler, the chief data officer. The Channel 4 News team reportedly told the company officials they were meeting with a “fixer for a wealthy client hoping to get candidates elected in Sri Lanka.”
The executives repeatedly appear to brag about their behind-the-scenes efforts to influence political outcomes in Mexico, Australia and Kenya, at one point teasing that they’re beginning to work in China, too.
In one clip, Turnbull stresses the firm is not “in the business of fake news, we’re not in the business of lying, making stuff up, and we’re not in the business of entrapment. So we wouldn’t send a pretty girl out to seduce a politician and then film them in their bedroom.”
In a later conversation featuring Nix, however, the chief executive appears to float the idea that they could entrap candidates with potential bribes, “instantly having video evidence of corruption, putting it on the internet.”
Nix later added, “Please don’t pay too much attention to what I’m saying because I’m just giving you examples of what can be done, and what has been done.”
In a number of the exchanges, Turnbull stresses the ability of Cambridge Analytica to play on people’s “hopes and fears.”
“You didn’t know that was a fear until you saw something that just evoked that reaction from you,” Turnbull appeared to say, “and our job is to get, is to drop the bucket further down the well than anybody else, to understand what are those really, deep-seated underlying fears, concerns.”
“We entirely refute any allegation that Cambridge Analytica or any of its affiliates use entrapment, bribes, or socalled ‘honeytraps’ for any purpose whatsoever.” — Cambridge Analytica, a British data analysis firm, in a statement