Cambridge Analytica Suspends C.E.O. Amid Facebook Data Scandal

[applegrove]

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG at the NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/world/europe/cambridge-analytica-ceo-suspended.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

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Cambridge Analytica, the political data firm with ties to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix, on Tuesday, amid a furor over the access it gained to private information on more than 50 million Facebook users.

The decision came after a television broadcast in which Mr. Nix was recorded suggesting unseemly practices to influence foreign elections.

The London-based company, founded by Stephen K. Bannon and Robert Mercer, a wealthy Republican donor who has put at least $15 million into it, offered tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior.

So-called psychographic modeling techniques, which were built in part with the data harvested from Facebook, underpinned the company’s work for the Trump campaign in 2016. Mr. Nix once called the practice “our secret sauce,” though some have questioned its effectiveness.

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