Nigel Oakes, founder of the Cambridge Analytica matrix, SCL Group, told the newspaper that the US subsidiary also closes its doors. UU

The Cambridge Analytica company decided Wednesday May 2 that it will cease its activity after the scandal caused by the filtering and use for political propaganda purposes of the data of at least 50 million Facebook users without proper authorization. The scandal also embarrassed the social network Facebook and its founder Marck Zuckenberg, who a few weeks ago had to address the US Senate for the leaked data. Facebook was forced to revise its privacy conditions and its management of personal information since the filtering of data can lead to legal sanctions.

Leer en español: Cambridge Analytica cierra operaciones por el escandalo que involucró a Facebook

Cambridge Analytica worked for the campaign of President Donald Trump in 2016 and the information he had obtained from the Facebook profiles was used to boost the Brexit campaign. One of the owners of the company is the American billionaire Robert Mercer, financier of the Trump campaign and one of the promoters of the so-called North American alternative right who helped reach the Republican candidate for the White House.

The reason why the company will cease its activity lies in the fact that "the loss of customers and the high legal costs related to the filtering of personal data of Facebook has made it unsustainable and therefore should be removed from business" says the WSJ . The closing will be effective immediately and the workers are already complying with the order to turn off any functioning computer.

Cambridge Analytica by means of a statement indicated that it has been "the subject of numerous unfounded accusations and that, despite the company's efforts to correct the registration, it has been vilified by activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising, both in the political and commercial areas ".

According to the WSJ, since the news broke Cambridge Analytica has not achieved a single political client at the federal level in the US. UU and in recent months he had lost several with whom he had previously worked.

The scandal

Cambridge Analytica is dedicated to data analysis and communication, and used the personal data of 50 million Facebook users without permission to create a system to reach specific American voters with political advertisements – including false news – based on their personality, according to revealed former employee Christopher Wylie. "With this system, it was possible to indirectly influence the results of the elections, since the discrediting was part of the company's activities," says Wylie.

In order to capture those Facebook users, Cambridge Analytica noticed the academic Aleksander Kogan, who developed an application called This is your digital life with which, through a digital questionnaire, specific profiles were created that would be sent to Facebook users, and which were given information according to their political positions.

Latin American Post | Carlos Gómez

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