A company of Facebook investor Peter Thiel is involved in sale of Facebook user data according to a former employee of data analyst Cambridge Analytica. The ex-Cambridge employee and later whistleblower Christopher Wylie presented mail changes, according to which at least one employee of Thiels company Palantir worked closely with Cambridge Analytica.
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Palantir employees were in and out at Cambridge Analytica, said whistleblower Wylie of New York Times: “There were Palantir employees who hereinkamem and worked with data.”
The background is data scandal around Facebook: IT professional Aleksandr Kogan from Cambridge had programmed a quiz in 2014 that he had played on Facebook. 270,000 users. They agreed that quiz app would copy and save ir personal profiles as well as those of ir Facebook friends. Kogan passed on data of an estimated 50 million users without ir consent and knowledge to Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica is suspected to have influenced US presidential election in favor of election winner Donald Trump, in which it directed certain postings specifically into timeline of users.
The company Palantir rejected accusation of being involved in incident. In a first opinion, company had “never had a business relationship with Cambridge Analytica nor worked with data from Cambridge Analytica”. When New York Times now reported on Palantir employee mentioned by whistleblower Wylie, Palantir clarified his presentation: employee had not worked on behalf of company at Cambridge Analytica, but in years 2013 and 2014 “in Private function “.
Since discovery of data scandal, Facebook has been criticized. The company apologized to users this week in full-page newspaper ads in US, UK, and even Germany. CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged misconduct in interviews. US media reported that Zuckerberg was prepared to take a position before US Congress. What committee and when this survey could take place is not yet clear.
