A social media account belonging to a data mining company associated with President Kenyatta and his US counterpart Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns has been suspended by Facebook.
In a statement on Friday, Facebook Inc announced it has suspended the account of Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), including their political data firm, Cambridge Analytica (CA). CA reportedly worked with Trump and Uhuru’s campaign teams during the last presidential elections in 2016 and 2017 respectively.
The technology company said it took the action after establishing that SCL had violated its 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,” the statement said.
Facebook further said that about 270,000 people across the world downloaded the said App.
“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,” Facebook said.
Ahead of last year’s presidential polls, President Uhuru’s Jubilee Party allegedly hired the services of Cambridge Analytica to manage part of its online campaign.
The firm is also credited for US President Trump’s campaigns and Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom in June, 2017.
