Zuckerberg's 2017 Email on Cambridge Analytica Surfaces in Court
Mark Zuckerberg: "Cambridge Analytica" (2017)
Internal Tech Emails has published a January 30, 2017 email from Mark Zuckerberg discussing Cambridge Analytica, drawn from the In re Facebook, Inc. Securities Litigation (2026). The document revives scrutiny of what Facebook's leadership knew before the scandal broke, with commenters noting the email suggests Cambridge Analytica's tactics were nothing unique.
Cambridge Analytica weren't doing anything anybody else could have been doing!
- dehrmann
When I interviewed at Facebook in 2019, one interviewer was on an integrity team. I'm not sure if it was his take or what the org settled on, but it's that Cambridge Analytica wasn't Facebook's fault (users willingly granted access), but it was their problem. Not surprising some of the same techniques got used by others.
- calldacopsidc
- thih9
> [This document is from In re Facebook, Inc. Securities Litigation (2026).]
It looks like we only have access to this now? If yes, this would be development and I’d remove the “2017” from the title.
- TechTechTech
See this video for how Alexander Nix (former CEO) presented the data he had on every adult in the united states https://youtu.be/APZUrj8SN0M?t=297 (start at 4:55 min)
- matrix87
Apparently they used facebook to incite backlash against the Indian government to bully them into allowing their Internet.org initiative to continue there (essentially a stripped down, anti-net-neutrality version of the internet which only allows people to use facebook and a couple other sites).
This was mentioned in Careless People. It seems like they wanted to use facebook as an electoral tool pretty early on because it gives them leverage over politicians. They might not have been deliberately involved in CA, but this is probably exactly what they wanted
- goshx
IMHO, that was the beginning of the deep troubles we are in right now, and cause of the political polarization. The brainwash was very effective, not only in the US, but also in Brazil.
- jameson
I wonder how much this relates to existence of Super PACs and lobbying in US.
If campaign spending is strictly regulated, I imagine it would be difficult for such work.
- devonsolomon
Cambridge Analytica developed a database for The Trump campaign that classified 3.5 million Black Americans as “Deterrence”, used as audiences in FB advertising intended to discourage voting.
We know Cambridge Analytica weren’t afraid to subvert the core principle of democracy like that because we have documents from their campaigns in Trinidad and Tobago to do the same thing, presenting not voting as an act of youth rebellion with the aim of reducing turnout among young Black Trinidadians.
(Discouraging black people from voting seems to be a theme)
Sure, as Mark says, anyone with the voter data and capital could likely create that audience and run those ads, but anyone with integrity wouldn’t. The story is not about unbelievable sophistication, it’s about using the tools Facebook provided to subvert democracy.
Mark is right that they’re nothing special. But that doesn’t dismiss them, the fact that they’re nothing special is the scary part.