It was revealed that Twitter sold user data to Cambridge Analytica in 2015, although from the social network they emphasize that it was something very specific and that they no longer work with them.
A few months ago, we were scandalized by the theft of data by Facebook's Cambridge Analyitica, with the intention that users who use the social network would end up voting for the current president of the United States. This great controversy has even led Mark Zuckerberg to testify for two days in a row before the United States Congress. The controversy around Cambridge Analytica has not ended since a new chapter has been uncovered by Bloomberg, who reveals that Twitter sold data to the information gathering company.
The Facebook case was scandalous, but Cambridge Analytica used malicious software to collect third-party data. The case of Twitter is more complex, since it has been the social network itself that has sold user data, something that the company would have used for different operations in the United States. The tasks would have been carried out by Aleksandr Kogan's company, who developed the fake test for Facebook, which collected user data, through a company called Global Science Research (GSR), who had access to Twitter data in 2015.
'In 2015, GSR accessed through the API a random sample of public tweets from a five-month period from December 2014 to April 2015. Based on recent reports, we conducted our own internal review and did not we found no access to private data about people who use Twitter 'Twitter said in a statement to Bloomberg.
The social network Twitter ensures that GSR made a payment for the data, so it would be normal for it to have access to the same amount of data as another advertiser or developer, who works with the company. The social network, for now, would have beta Cambridge Analytica and would be out of all advertiser databases, preventing access to more data.
