Quote of the day 11th October 2020

"I can't recall seeing a global news story so comprehensively dismantled."


(Josh Glancy writing in the Sunday Times today on the final report by Elizabeth Denham, Britain's information commissioner, into the handling of data by SCL/Cambridge Analytica.

The story which her report dismantles is the idea that Cambridge Analytica had any impact on the result of the Brexit referendum. She wrote that there is "No further evidence to change my earlier views that SCL/CA were not involved in the the EU referendum campaign in the UK."

Her report does not exonerate Facebook, it merely makes clear that the evidence does not support the use of Cambridge Analytica's actions as an excuse to ignore or dispute the legitimacy of the Brexit referendum by those who cannot face the reality that Britain really did vote to leave the EU.

Referring to this and to similar controversies around the election of Trump, Glancy concludes his article as follows.

"There was a real scandal here. Facebook played fast and loose with private data, allowing hacks and chancers to seize information they had no right to access. The tech behemoth was slow and sloppy in protecting users and its website is a spigot of dangerous nonsense that needs wholesale reform.

But Trump and Brexit?

The answers to these enduring phenomena will not be found with the meretricious Cambridge Analytica. They lie where they always have - among our friends, neighbours and compatriots." )

 



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