Cambridge Analytica has finally stepped out to deny allegations made against them in the case of widespread misuse of data from millions of Facebook accounts. Cambridge Analytica held its first news conference since allegations surfaced that the Facebook data was used in the aiding of Donald Trump win in the 2016 presidential election, which was represented by Clarence Mitchell, the company’s publicist.
After months of allegations resulting in salacious scandals, Cambridge Analytica’s reputation is still being dragged through the dirt. This has resulted in even the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, having to publicly apologise for his company’s wrongdoing especially where privacy policies being questioned.
Furthermore, Mitchell went on to say The company has been portrayed in some quarters as almost some Bond villain, in which he said, Cambridge Analytica is no Bond villain. Also, in denying the claims of having nothing to do with Facebook’s Data aiding Trump’s campaign and even Brexit campaigns, Mitchell stated that the data collected from Facebook was gathered by another company, who had contractual obligations but, deleted such data when the uproar started.
Facebook’s share price had been taking a head-on blow having gone down to as low as USD$150.00 per share and the losing almost USD$50 billion in value for its shareholders.
On the contrary, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, Christopher Wylie also made claims that the company has connections to the successful campaign such as taking Britain out of the European Union.
Moreover, Mitchell is adamant that Cambridge Analytica did not break any laws, but has admitted to ordering an independent investigation because, he insists the company is being victimised with wild speculation based on misinformation, misunderstanding, or in some cases, frankly, an overtly political position.
Also, Mitchell stated that to think political consultancies can use data to influence votes is “frankly insulting to the electorates. Data science in modern campaigning helps those campaigns, but it is still and always will be the candidates who win the races”.
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