The Big Data Panic

Cambridge Analytica said it could move the minds of American voters. Science tells a different story.

More than a year after the US presidential election, the world is once again in turmoil. Did Cambridge Analytica, the mysterious marketing company, take Donald Trump to the White House? For all we know, the answer is likely: No!

After the countless reports of the last few days, it is hardly necessary to summarise what has happened. To be on the safe side, here is still a brief overview, just in case: According to revelations by the Guardian and Channel4, political marketing company Cambridge Analytica (CA) not only used dirty campaign tricks but also collected over 50 million Facebook user profiles with the help of an ethically questionable scientist and his app. These were then used to build “psychographic” models, which were then applied to influence American voters and to get Donald Trump behind the “Resolute desk” in the Oval Office.

So much for what has been reported over the past few days. Since then, Facebook has lurched from one PR disaster to the next, as the Internet giant was demonstrably in the know about Cambridge Analytica’s data-gathering for several years but chose to remain largely inactive. Over the public outcry, the company’s market value has plummeted by more than $50…