Thread by @carolecadwalla

I am a huge fan of @FT's journalism. I subscribe to the @FT & support its journalism. And I think it really needs to examine its coverage of Cambridge Analytica & its own involvement with the firm, @khalafroula.

Last week, a journalist who had not covered the story previously wrote a blogpost below. It failed to note even basic background context of @iconews's inquiry & set off cascade of other stories that claimed @observeruk's investigation had been 'debunked'
ft.com/content/aa235c…

A follow-up piece was littered with inaccuracies. The allegations are falsely represented. Even the account of how the inquiry began is factually incorrect.

In fairness: this is a difficult, complex story that has unfolded over years.

ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/10/06/160…

.@observerUK addressed some of this in an @observeruk editorial & put latest ICO's statement in context of its previous reports & those of DCMS, Canadian Privacy commissioner & the FTC in the States.

But on Friday, @FT came back into the frame..

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Brittany Kaiser *finally* published some internal Cambridge Analytica docs including this. 'We've done good work for the Financial Times,' it notes. And goes on to boast of its pyschographic work for Trump - long long denied, including by Nix to parliament & congress

The work for @FT is 'publicly known', the Cambridge Analytica employee says. This is true. We've known about it since @gilliantett wrote a fascinating early article on the company & - as is good journalistic practice - included this detail in her piece

A couple of months later, I wrote to Gillian & she put me in touch with @FT's commercial team. They told me it was 'market research'. I pointed out that Cambridge Analytica wasn't a market research company so could they tell me more...

I never found out what Cambridge Analytica did with @FT data. If one of their journalists read through this latest document dump, they will see the firm wrote retention of its clients data into its contracts. This is what @RaviNa1k calls the 'data swamp'. So, there's a big q here

Was @FT's data repurposed by Cambridge Analytica for Trump campaign? This is what it did, after all. It took data intended for one purpose. And then used it for another. Maybe, CA never had access to any @FT data. I hope so. But I think @FT needs to address this publicly

It needs to investigate internally & to do that it really needs to understand the depths of what it doesn't know. @gilliantett has written some fascinating columns & @aliya__ram's 2018 reporting was excellent but since she left, it has no institutional memory of the subject

This is a company that even the British government has branded 'unethical'. Nix has been banned from running companies for 7 years. Another small detail missing from @FT's reports last week...
gov.uk/government/new…

Instead, incredibly, the report quoted just one person: Alex Taylor - CEO of the company shortly before it went bust - complaining he'd been 'unfairly tarnished'. Inexplicably, @FT chose him for comment. Not @profcarroll, not @RaviNa1k, not @DamianCollins, not @IanCLucas.

Friday's document dump blows apart assertion that Cambridge Analytica had 'no role' in Brexit. AggregateIQ - firm at heart of EUref - revealed to be operating as single legal entity with CA. Meanwhile @Channel4News's reporting exposed Trump campaign *did* use CA's psychographics