Social media giant, Facebook has suspended a British firm that is reported to have been enlisted by President Uhuru Kenyatta in his presidential campaigns last year.
Yesterday, Facebook Inc suspended Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), together with its offshoot, Cambridge Analytica-a data analytics firm.
Facebook said in a statement explained that the suspension was occasioned by knowledge that the firm breached Facebook policies.
“In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica, a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe. He also passed that data to Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, Inc,” read part of the Statement as quoted by the Star.
The statement added that the App was downloaded by about 27, 000 people.
“In so doing, they gave their consent for Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their privacy settings set to allow it.”
Cambridge Analytica, Kogan, and Wylie, Facebook indicated, gave false information stating they had destroyed the data which they had been certified to use but it turned out they did not delete it
The social media giant said it has a duty to protect information of Facebook users.
After the August 8 polls, US’ Hillary Clinton, said the results of the election were a “project of Cambridge”.
After Supreme Court’s nullification of the polls, Clinton while speaking to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, said she is investigating what happened to Kenya’s elections and why the Supreme Court nullified it.
“You know, the Kenya election was just overturned and really what’s interesting about that — and I hope somebody writes about it, Terry — the Kenyan election was also a project of Cambridge Analytica, the data company owned by the Mercer family that was instrumental in the Brexit vote,” she said.
Cambridge Analytic was also enlisted in the in US campaigns by Donald Trump where he went on to win the American elections
The data mining firm was also contacted by the pro-Brexit faction in the UK where they won the referendum.