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How does Facebook data leak out in the United States?

What's the matter with the leakage of American Facebook data? What is the cause of this large-scale data leakage? According to a comprehensive report, President trump hired a data analysis company in the 2016 election. The media revealed that since 2014, it has illegally collected data from 50 million US users on Facebook (FB), the social network, to design software, predict and influence voters' voting orientation in the general election and help trump win.

The data analysis company is alleged to be associated with Russia and has become the subject of investigation by special prosecutor Mueller of "Russia gate". According to foreign media, Facebook has long been aware of the incident, but has not taken remedial measures.

According to the report, the protagonist of the incident was a data analysis company called "Cambridge analysis". As early as the end of 2013, it had been invested by Mercer, a trump supporter and conservative leader, and supported by Bannon, who later became the chief strategist of the White House. It tried to manipulate the results of the US election by collecting big data and psychoanalysis.

Before the mid-term election in 2014, the company began to cooperate with Cogan, a Russian American psychologist from Cambridge University, to collect user data on Facebook through the psychological test Facebook application designed by the latter.

According to Varsity, a Cambridge student newspaper, Cogan studied for a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Hong Kong and was hired as a lecturer in psychology at the University of Cambridge. Cogan's program is called 'this is our digital life', which claims to be an 'application for research used by psychologists' on Facebook, and tempts users to conduct personality and psychological tests with a small reward.

Finally, a total of 270000 users downloaded and used the app, through which Cogan obtained their residences and 'like' content, etc., and at the same time, it took advantage of the vulnerability of FB system to obtain the information of their friends without the knowledge of the testers, so the data of 50 million Facebook users entered the database of Cogan and 'Cambridge analysis'.

Data model of user's political orientation

Wylie, one of the founders of Cambridge analytics, revealed the incident to the media, saying that the company used the Facebook information collected to build a data model based on the users' personalities or political orientations, so as to "lock in the demons in their hearts". The specific measures include placing targeted political advertisements to the users concerned, so as to influence their voting orientations.

Gregory, vice president and deputy general counsel of Facebook, issued a statement last week, confirming that Cogan had been aware in 2015 of violating the platform policy and improperly sharing user data with 'Cambridge analytics'. At the same time, Facebook announced the closure of accounts of all relevant people.

Cambridge analytics blamed Cogan for the theft of FB user data, saying it had deleted the data and had never used it to support trump. However, the New York Times and observer, which exposed the incident, pointed out that the data had not been deleted by Cambridge analysis.

The media Committee of the British Parliament criticized Facebook for misleading Congress and concealing the risk of unauthorized data theft. Some members asked Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, to come to Congress for questioning.