Cambridge Analytica
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| Website | cambridgeanalytica |
Cambridge Analytica (CA) is a privately held company that combines data mining and data analysis with strategic communication for the electoral process. It was created in 2013 as an offshoot of its British parent company SCL Group to participate in American politics. In 2014, CA was involved in 44 U.S. political races. The company is heavily funded by the family of Robert Mercer, an American hedge-fund billionaire. In 2015 it became known as the data analysis company working initially for Ted Cruz's presidential campaign. In 2016, after Cruz's campaign had faltered, Cambridge Analytica started to work for Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The firm maintains offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., and London.
SCL Group calls itself a "global election management agency" known for involvement "in military disinformation campaigns to social media branding and voter targeting". SCL’s involvement in the political world has been primarily in the developing world where it has been used by the military and politicians to study and manipulate public opinion and political will. SCL claims to have been successful to help foment coups.
According to the Swiss "Das Magazin" the methods of data analysis of CA are to a large degree based on the academic work of Michal Kosinski. In 2008 Kosinski had joined the Psychometrics Centre of Cambridge University where he then developed with his coworkers a profiling system using general online data, Facebook-likes, and smartphone data. He showed that with a limited number of "likes" people can be analyzed better than friends or relatives can do and that individual psychological targeting is a powerful tool to influence people.
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