Cambridge Analytica ruse lets Facebook off the hook

Donald Trump won the presidency of the United States thanks to the deployment of a new and dangerous covert technology of voter persuasion built on Facebook data and developed by a rogue political consultancy called Cambridge Analytica; their actions, and this new technology, threaten the fabric of democracy itself.

This is the terrifying story that has dominated the international news for the past fortnight. The problem is that it’s not necessarily true. A ...