Cambridge Analytica DID Steal your information…
Cambridge Analytica is illegal and are stealing your information, here’s why you shouldn’t trust them. Although they claimed to have gotten rid of all the information they took from 2015, it shouldn’t have been in their possession in the first place!
Throughout the Guardian news article, the phrase “could be lawfully licensed” is used because Cambridge Analytica did not have it officially licensed before beginning collection. This fact makes the entire scheme overall, illegal! All of the words they chose to utilize in their release statements and public articles prove their unreliability by being defensive and incorrect while their irrational claims only make them more guilty. Don’t be deceived by their use of the word “fact,” when they have not released proof or evidence of what information they actually have and are using for their benefit! Especially when it has been proven that they have, in fact, utilized our personal information (that was illegally obtained without our approval) to edit the ads we and our friends saw. These subliminal messages affected our minds and our thinking when they used it to skew the presidential election and help Trump win! Because if we’re being honest, there is no way he won the election without the results being tampered with, and that is not okay.
Cambridge Analytica continued to use our information against us to promote their own political agenda - an agenda we wouldn’t promote on our own given the choice. It’s wrong for them to steal our information and then use it against us. It’s also wrong for them to spread lies and try to gain our support when they’ve taken our privacy from us-something we can’t get back once it’s gone. They are extremely untrustworthy and basically thieves when these processes are being taken into consideration.
This news article and the video within, also includes an interview with Christopher Wylie, an ex-employee of Cambridge Analytica who gave us insider information regarding their undesired collection and use of our private information. The language and attitude they use to defend themselves and exert is so undiscerning; Wylie seems almost unapologetic as he describes how information is siphoned from the public without full consent. Upon further exploration, Christopher Wylie discusses the extent Cambridge Analytica went to gather this personal information illegally, and he delineates their ability to garner a sample size of over one thousand people in under a few minutes.
However, their wrongful collection of the data is not all that puts this article at fault and the public at risk. During the interview with the Guardian, Wylie continues to describe how they proceeded to utilize the illegally sourced information to affect large political campaigns worldwide. Allegations against Cambridge Analytica are about the 2016 presidential election as well as the UK Brexit vote. Although it seemed as though there were many people who were against both, both ended up taking unexpected turns. Brexit was voted through and Donald Trump won the United States presidential election. Why these specific political campaigns you may ask? Cambridge Analytica was ultimately paid off by these two parties as made clear by Wylie in the interview video, and had an extremely large effect regarding the publicity of the new company. Both these allegations are said to have occurred because of Cambridge Analytica’s use of our personal data to create targeted ads specific to each individual that overall affected their views during these political changes.
This introduces us to their lack of professionalism and reliability because others firstly, other companies have not and would not have taken our information without asking, and then proceed to use it against us. This then leads us to the same point, Cambridge Analytica is not to be trusted!
Throughout the interview, Christopher Wylie also speaks in an unapologetic tone, making it seem as though he actually did not care about the actions he and his company were being chastised for. In this sense, those who argue that Cambridge Analytica did not do any of said allegations or those who admit it did, but since have changed and gotten rid of all the illegally gathered information, seem wrong. After all, why would the company make an effort to turn around and fix these clear issues if they don’t care about the allegations anyways? In fact. Their lack of interest in discussing these topics makes it seem as though they definitely did commit these crimes, but do not care because ultimately it gave their new company more publicity.
On top of this, the use of clear diction in the Guardian news article makes Cambridge Analytica seem almost negative in their descriptions. Because of the way the information is presented throughout the news article (as nothing other than facts), Cambridge Analytica has almost no way to defend themselves other than merely stating that “they didn’t do it.”.
Cambridge Analytica has been illegally collecting your and your friends’ information through facebook for some time now with no statistical evidence that they have gotten rid of it. But because privacy has already been compromised, there’s almost no returning it now.