Twitter Wrapped Up In Cambridge Analytica Mess Too, Not As Bad As Facebook Though

Facebook can rest easy. The crown of the biggest abuser of user privacy rights still goes to Mark Zuckerberg’s social network firm. However, it seems that Twitter was also vying for the title but fell short. It seems that it also sold data to the same researcher that started the whole Cambridge Analytica debacle, but the firm said that it never received said data.

Speaking to the Telegraph recently, Twitter admitted to selling user data to Aleksandr Kogan. Kogan was the researcher who also approached Facebook for user data as part of a supposed research project he was working on. When the article was posted, there were no details as to whether or not the data was sold to Cambridge Analytica. This has since been cleared up.

Unlike the user data from Facebook, it seems the data analytics firm never received anything of Twitter from Kogan. This was according to a statement that was released by the company. As such, users on the microblogging platform can take some solace in the fact that they were not manipulated specifically by anything Cambridge Analytica did.

However, this doesn’t mean that there was not information warfare going on using Twitter. There are plenty of Russian agents and bots causing mayhem all on their own on the platform.

With regards to the kinds of data that was sold, to begin with, it was nowhere near what the firm got from Facebook. Twitter basically just gave Kogan random Tweets from users, which are already available in the public sphere, to begin with. It likely wouldn’t have been worth the money paid.

In any case, it would seem that Cambridge Analytica has since been banned as an ad buyer on Twitter, Engadget reports. The firm can still operate using the platform, they simply can’t pay for anything.