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What did Cambridge Analytica really do?

Here's why Facebook and Cambridge Analytica are under fire.

PHOENIX - Facebook is under fire after revelations that a company called Cambridge Analytica allegedly used the personal information of 50 million users to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election.

Cambridge Analytica denies that, but its CEO has now appeared on hidden camera taking credit for the campaign's successes, and a whistleblower from the company now claims former Trump advisor Steve Bannon wanted to use the company in his "culture war".

So what does Cambridge Analytica actually do? And what is it accused of doing?

Hyper-targeting voters

Cambridge Analytica is a British company that offers demographic and voter targeting information to campaigns.

When the company was founded, Bannon was a board member, along with other wealthy Republicans.

The New York Times wrote that the company's lawyer cautioned them that foreigners getting involved in U.S. elections might be illegal, but the company started working with the Trump campaign in 2016.

Cambridge Analytica boasted that it could create detailed psychological profiles of people based on thousands of data points. To get those data points, they allegedly paid a Russian-American researcher who had developed a "personality test" app that collected those data points. Facebook claims the app and the developer used the data inappropriately and has since cut off their access.

CHECK YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS: Here's how to protect your personal info on Facebook

Cambridge Analytica also claims to have deleted the data it received, but the New York times also claims to have seen a copy of the data that it believes Cambridge Analytica still may have access to.

The psychological profiles were incredibly detailed, logging characteristics like neuroticism, introversion and extroversion, gullibility, even if someone believed in astrology.

The model could then hyper-target individual voters on Facebook.

Critics charged it enabled a kind of psychological warfare, exposing voters to ads and information that would scare them the most. Cambridge and the Trump campaign denied those allegations.

However, the Trump campaign reportedly ran 175,000 versions of the same ad on Facebook during the third presidential debate.

A Cambridge Analytica whistleblower went further, claiming Steve Bannon wanted to weaponize the psychological profiles.

"Steve wanted weapons for his culture war," former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie said. "That's what he wanted and that's what we offered him, a way to do what he wanted which was to change the culture of America."

Cambridge Analytica calls Wylie a disgruntled former employee.

Undercover video has also emerged from Britain's Channel 4, apparently showing Cambridge Analytica's CEO taking credit for Trump's victory.

The Fallout

Cambridge Analytica has now suspended Alexander Nix, the CEO caught on camera, but has not removed him from the company.

Authorities in the UK have requested search warrants for the company's headquarters to investigate Cambridge Analytica's role in the Brexit campaign.

And Special Counsel Robert Mueller has requested communications between the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica employees.

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