Cambridge Analytica whistleblower appears before Senate – as it happened

Grassley is now swearing in the witnesses. We’re going to start with Eitan Hersh.

The contrast between Grassley and Feinstein’s perspectives on this hearing is stark. Grassley basically said, everyone uses data and microtargeting, but sure, let’s talk about it in general. Feinstein is asking questions about the shadiest aspects of CA’s activities, digging into possible connections to Russia, WikiLeaks, and hackers.

Feinstein: We do not know the extent to which CA worked with hackers to obtain damaging information on opponents... We do not know the extent of CA’s contact with Julian Assange...

Next up is Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

While Grassley was going big picture, Feinstein is digging into the details of Cambridge Analytica’s dealings, giving a description of Project Ripon – the campaigning interface the company built – and how they used psychographic profiles to segment voters and craft messages.

Grassley is bringing up other uses of microtargeting and Facebook data, such as the Obama campaign’s use of a Facebook app in 2012.

Grassley: The underlying facts of what happened with CA and the Facebook data haven’t changed much since December 2015, when the Guardian first reported on the data’s use by the Ted Cruz campaign. What’s changed is that CA went to work for Trump, and Trump won.

And we’re off, with an opening statement by Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman.

Grassley says that he requested Cambridge Analytica to appear at this hearing, but they declined in light of their recent declaration of insolvency.

Eitan Hersh, the political scientist and expert on microtargeting who is also testifying at today’s hearing, just released his written testimony.

The testimony is eight pages long, but here’s the introduction (emphasis mine):

First, I will describe voter targeting practices. Based on the information I have seen from public reports about Cambridge Analytica, it is my opinion that its targeting practices in 2016 ought not to be a major cause for concern in terms of unduly influencing the election outcome. Second, I will explain the gaps in our knowledge about the effects of social media-based targeting. Much more could be learned by impartial researchers to determine the power of targeting tools used in the 2016 election and, more importantly, the landscape of targeting in the coming years. In order for researchers to learn these things, they will need access to data held by Facebook. Third, I will suggest that those interested in the effect of social media platforms on electoral politics should focus not only on the supply of provocative political information from campaigns and firms like Cambridge Analytica, but also on the demand for provocative information from American citizens.

Senators are filing into the hearing, and the witnesses are seated, so we should be getting started soon.

Last night, the New York Times reported that the department of justice and FBI have begun investigating the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica.

According to the Times, investigators have been questioning former CA employees, as well as its banks. Wylie confirmed to the Times that he had been contacted by both the FBI and the DOJ, and was planning to meet with their investigators.

The political consultancy is also facing investigations in the UK.

Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Christopher Wylie’s appearance before the Senate judiciary committee.

Wylie is the pink-haired Canadian data scientist whose decision to blow the whistle on the use of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica set off shock waves that are still reverberating through Westminster, Washington DC, and Silicon Valley. Since Wylie went public with the story of how the personal information of tens of millions of people was harvested from Facebook and used by a political consultant for Donald Trump, Cambridge Analytica has collapsed and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was hauled in front of Congress for the first time.

Wylie appeared before the digital, culture, media and sport select committee of Parliament in late March, and he met privately with House Democrats in April. Today’s hearing, titled “Cambridge Analytica and the Future of Data Privacy”, will be his first public appearance before US lawmakers.

Also testifying are Eitan Hersh, a professor of political science and author of Hacking the Electorate, and Mark Jamison, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and director of the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center.

Jamison has written about the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal from a business perspective, noting that while the use of data for political campaigns is normal, Facebook was wrong not to be more transparent with its users:

For markets to perform well, customers should be given complete and understandable information on the nature of the services they are buying, even those that have a zero monetary price as in the case of Facebook. This isn’t happening.

Hersh, whose book studies the use and efficacy of micro-targeting by political campaigns, has called Cambridge Analytica’s claims about psychographic profiling “snake oil”.

“To me, the story is 99% about Facebook and 1% about Cambridge Analytica,” Hersh told the LA Times.