The Cambridge Analytica scandal: Proof advertising is a major menace to society
The Guardian’s expose on Cambridge Analytica has set off serious alarm bells about how political operatives are secretly using data mined by our industry, writes Bob Hoffman.
When I wrote BadMen: How Advertising Went From A Minor Annoyance To A Major Menace, I started it with a frightening quote from a creep named Alexander Nix, who is CEO of a company called Cambridge Analytica.
In the past 48 hours, Cambridge Analytica, its unsavory connection to Facebook, and each company’s role in the tarnishing of the 2016 presidential election have been front page news all over the world. The dangers I contemplated in BadMen have come to life in ways I hoped were just my own paranoid fantasies.
I hope you will read this not as political commentary but as a real-world example of the dangers of ad tech, tracking, and surveillance marketing – how they undermined the integrity of the 2016 presidential election and the dangers they pose to free societies.
Here’s the outline of the story: this week, The Guardian and The New York Times published a very damaging story about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. The story claimed that Cambridge had underhandedly obtained access to the Facebook files of 50 million Americans and exploited them during the 2016 presidential election. They claimed they destroyed the files, but didn’t. In fact, they may still have them.
