Twitter sold data public tweets to Cambridge Analytica supplier

In 2015, Twitter sold data to Aleksandr Kogan, the researcher who sold Facebook data to Cambridge Analytica. According to Twitter, Kogan did not abuse the data, as happened with Facebook.

Kogan wanted day-long access to the database of public tweets users posted between December 2014 and April 2015, Bloomberg reports. Kogan also got that data. The data only includes public tweets and possibly location data, but no info about DMs and other sensitive personal data, Twitter says.

It is unknown what Kogan intended to use the data for. The researcher gained access to data from up to 87 million Facebook users by creating a quiz that asked for permission to store data from users and their contacts. Hundreds of thousands of people allowed it.

It is possible that Kogan wanted to provide a more complete dataset to, for example, Cambridge Analytica, by linking information from Facebook and Twitter. Kogan and Cambridge Analytica have not yet responded to Twitter’s confirmation. Cambridge Analytica used the information to deliver more targeted ads to Facebook users during elections.