Donald Trump appears to have broken his silence on the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal with a cryptic tweet some people have interpreted as an admission he “stole the US election”.
This week senior members of Cambridge Analytica (CA) were recorded by undercover journalists from Channel 4 News bragging about they had helped Trump win the 2016 US presidential election by using smear campaigns, untraceable social media posts and a secret self-destructing email system.
The footage released this week also revealed Mark Turnbull, the managing director Cambridge Analytica’s (CA) political division, taking credit for the “Defeat Crooked Hillary” brand of attack adverts.
The adverts, which were funded by the Make America Number 1 super-PAC, could be illegal under US election law as any coordination between official election campaigns and outside groups is forbidden.
Although the president did not mention CA specifically, in light of the recent revelations some commentators pointed out the connection.
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologised on Wednesday for mistakes his company made in how it handled data belonging to 50 million of its users and promised tougher steps to restrict developers’ access to such information.
The world’s largest social media network is facing growing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States about a whistleblower’s allegations that London-based CA accessed user information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect Trump
“This was a major breach of trust. I’m really sorry this happened. We have a basic responsibility to protect people’s data,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with CNN, breaking a public silence since the scandal erupted at the weekend.
Zuckerberg said in a post on Facebook the company “made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it.”
Trump also spent the morning arguing over whether or nor he could take down Joe Biden in a fight.
The tweet came after the former Vice-President said he would “beat the hell out of” Trump if they were in high school over his crude comments about women.