The last few days represent more than just the most recent and inevitable controversy emanating from Facebook’s beleaguered offices. The scandal over Cambridge Analytica’s participation in electoral manipulation and gross breaches of privacy have resonated more widely with users than the earlier allegations about fake news and Russian connections. On […] Read more »
Public Says Drug Companies Have More Influence in Washington than the NRA
As policymakers weigh strategies to address the high cost of prescription drugs, the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds that a large majority of the public (72%) view pharmaceutical companies as having too much influence in Washington – more than say the same about the National Rifle Association (NRA). … […] Read more »
Congressional Swing Districts Poll Results
Our new Lake Research Partners poll of voters in 30 targeted swing districts finds that progressive Democrats have a tremendous opportunity in the 2018 election to win these districts, and they can run and win on progressive policies. We found that in these districts, mostly held by Republican incumbents, voters […] Read more »
Facebook’s Surveillance Machine
In 2014, Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company that would later provide services for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, reached out with a request on Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk” platform, an online marketplace where people around the world contract with others to perform various tasks. Cambridge Analytica was looking for people who […] Read more »
How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions
As the upstart voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica prepared to wade into the 2014 American midterm elections, it had a problem. The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could […] Read more »
Facebook bans Trump campaign’s data analytics firm for taking user data
Facebook is suspending the Trump-affiliated data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, after learning that it failed to delete data that it had taken inappropriately from users of the social network, Facebook said late Friday. … Cambridge Analytica, a firm that specializes in using online data to create voter personality profiles in […] Read more »