Cambridge Analytica's Black Box
The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that 50 million data profiles of Facebook users had been analyzed through psychographic profiling tools to target American voters under the guise of academic research. This incident, which resulted in a $5 billion penalty issued to Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission, raises important ethical considerations for the use of social media users’ data. It stresses the need for better oversight of academic research access to users’ data. It also highlights the potential for foreign interference in our democratic processes by impacting users’ decision-making. And finally, it calls attention to individual users’ role in safeguarding their data privacy in the globalized digital economy.
Margaret Hu is a Professor of Law and Director of the Digital Democracy Lab at William & Mary Law School. Her research interests include the intersection of immigration policy, national security, cybersurveillance, and civil rights.
Leading Ethically in the Age of AI and Big Data is the product of a grant to Purdue University’s College of Liberal Arts from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. Learn more about the project at https://bit.ly/LeadingEthically. A new Purdue Bachelor of Arts major in Artificial Intelligence will teach students to ask fundamental questions about intelligence and the ethical principles guiding the development of AI. Learn more at https://bit.ly/PurdueAI.
