For the past few days social networking giant Facebook has been embroiled in a controversy involving Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics and political consulting firm with ties to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
According to reports, the firm improperly obtained and exploited personal data from 50 million Facebook users for the 2016 US elections.
Reacting to this news, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media firm was committed to upholding the integrity of elections around the world.
“And we have a responsibility to do this, not only for the 2018 midterms in the U.S., which are going to be a huge deal this year and that’s just a huge focus for us but there’s a big election in India this year, there’s a big election in Brazil, there are big elections around the world, and you can bet that we are really committed to doing everything that we need to make sure that the integrity of those elections on Facebook is secured,” Zuckerberg told CNN in an interview.
Meanwhile, Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI), the Indian arm of Cambridge Analytica, has named the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party as its clients. On Wednesday, both the parties accused each other of using the data firm to obtain unauthorised personal information.
Interestingly, OBI's website was suspended shortly after the fight between the two parties surfaced.
OBI is run by the Amrish Tyagi, son of Janata Dal (United) leader KC Tyagi.
Amrish, in an interview to NDTV, said his firm had worked for the BJP in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, and was hired by the Youth Congress in Jharkhand between 2010 and 2011.
The Indian government is reportedly set to launch and enquiry to find out if Facebook has had a role in unfairly influencing elections in the country.
Damian Talbot