Support our non-partisan non-profit newsroom 💜 Donate now
It’s 2020. And the Cambridge Analytica story? It’s growing …
Jan 14, 2020
Episode 145

It’s 2020. And the Cambridge Analytica story? It’s growing …

HTML EMBED:
COPY
This week, former Cambridge Analytica employee and document leaker Brittany Kaiser talks with us about election interference and Big Data.

Remember Cambridge Analytica? You probably wish you could forget.

But 10 and a half months out from the next U.S. presidential election, former Cambridge Analytica employee Brittany Kaiser says there’s more we all need to know about Big Data and how companies like her former employer are using it to steer democracy.

Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018 after it came out that the company improperly accessed data on tens of millions of Facebook users. (Facebook ended up with a $5 billion fine from federal regulators.) Kaiser met with Robert Mueller and British lawmakers, she appeared in the Netflix documentary “The Great Hack” and last year she wrote a book, “Targeted.”

On New Year’s Day, she published a bundle of internal Cambridge Analytica documents online, giving more details about how her company operated separately and apart from the Facebook scandal at U.S. elections. With even more documents to come, Kaiser’s styled herself as a whistleblower, though privacy advocates and other critics have contested that.

For our first episode of the new year, we’re talking with Kaiser about big data, disinformation campaigns, election integrity and her new initiative, the Own Your Data Foundation. Plus, we’ll catch up on some of your emails and voice memos from the holiday break.

Big thanks to everyone who took part in our end-of-year fundraiser. If you missed it, you can still become a Marketplace Investor here and get yourself some cool thank-you gifts. For even more “Make Me Smart,” try our Alexa skill and subscribe to our newsletter.

None of us is as smart as all of us.

No matter how bananapants your day is, “Make Me Smart” is here to help you through it all— 5 days a week.

It’s never just a one-way conversation. Your questions, reactions, and donations are a vital part of the show. And we’re grateful for every single one.

Donate any amount to become a Marketplace Investor and help make us smarter (and make us smile!) every day.

The team

Marissa Cabrera Senior Producer
Bridget Bodnar Senior Producer
Tony Wagner Digital Producer