The case, or indeed cases, against Donald Trump , seem to be growing by the week. It would be safe to say that the 45th President of the United States has courted controversy since he first decided to run in the 2016 Presidential election against former First Lady and Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. From his thumb-warring ways on Twitter, to his Stalin-esque cabinet culls, the former Apprentice star's unconventionality, and certainly, unsuitability for the job has been seen in almost every area of his Presidency. One controversy, however, that has followed Trump since his inauguration is that of his alleged election interference - Russian or otherwise.
And now, more fuel has been added to the fire. Facebook has suspended Cambridge Analytica, a data-analysis company that worked on Trump's 2016 election campaign, over claims that it held onto improperly obtained user data after informing Facebook that it had been deleted.
Data-analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, has been suspended from Facebook following claims that it harvested 50 million profiles from the social media platform.
Cambridge Analytica garnered information from Cambridge University academic, Aleksandr Kogan, who was asking Facebook users to fill out surveys via an app in order to develop an effective campaigning tool. Around 270,000 Facebook users downloaded the app, however, a glitch allowed for information from hundreds of their online friends to be obtained without their consent, whistleblower Christopher Wylie has alleged.
Wylie, the former research director at Cambridge Analytica, went public after admitting regret over his involvement. Speaking to the Observer, he claimed "We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built on."
Documents seen by the Observer show that by late 2015, Cambridge Analytica had discovered that information had been harvested on an unprecedented level. However, at the time, the firm failed to alert Facebook users, and only took limited steps to recover and secure the confidential information of over 50 million social media users.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Cambridge Analytica has denied any wrongdoing. The firm claimed that their parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), hired the academic, Mr Kogan, to undertake "a large-scale research project in the US". Only later did the SCL discover that Kogan had obtained the data in violation of Facebook's policies, they continued, before asserting that he had then proceeded to delete the data.
T he statement added that for the "avoidance of doubt” none of Kogan's data was used in Cambridge Analytica's 2016 election project.
Facebook has since suspended SCL and Cambridge Analytica "pending further information".
Facebook's Vice President and deputy counsel general stated, "We are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information."
“We will take whatever steps are required to see that this happens. We will take legal action if necessary to hold them responsible and accountable for any unlawful behaviour.”
In other news, the Pledge of Allegiance actually started out as a marketing stunt .
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