Ted Cruz under fire in CA scandal; firm targeted voters with data from 50M Facebook users

Ted Cruz under fire in Cambridge Analytica scandal; firm targeted voters with data from 50M Facebook users

Todd J. Gillman and Katie Leslie

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz is under fire for his connections with a voter targeting firm that used data taken from 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge.

The Cruz presidential campaign touted its collaboration with Cambridge Analytica as a sign of a cutting edge run for the White House, allowing the Texan to carefully identify likely supporters. The firm shifted allegiance to Donald Trump once the Texan dropped out of the GOP primaries.

Both campaigns pumped millions into the company, controlled by billionaire Robert Mercer -- a key patron first of Cruz and then Trump in 2016.

Cruz continued work with Cambridge Analytica for six months after allegations surfaced in December 2015 that the firm was using Facebook data it had received illicitly. Recent revelations show the data harvesting was far more extensive than previously suspected, and possibly among the biggest privacy breaches in history.

"It was a grossly unethical experiment because you are playing with the psychology of an entire country... in the context of the democratic process," whistleblower Christopher Wylie, a data scientist who worked for Cambridge Analytica, told The Guardian. "It is a full service propaganda machine."

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https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2018/03/19/ted-cruz-fire-cambridge-analytica-scandal-firm-targeted-voters-data-50m-facebook-users