Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company, has been exposed for taking more than 50 million Facebook users's data (without their permission) in hopes to sway voters to support Trump during the 2016 presidential elections. Coincidentally, one of the company's key strategists was Steve Bannon of Brietbart News, Trump's former adviser (hmmm.....). They created an app that paid Facebook users to take a personality test and agree to have their data collected, along with their friend's data, leading to it collect data from millions of people without them even knowing it. Cambridge would then buy this data and began putting out targeted political ads (the far-right).
I think it's crazy that they were able to get so much private information from people without them even knowing, and it's even crazier knowing that they got away with it for about two years. I know that when you're running for some high position, such as the president, you have to get your message out there and persuade people to vote for you, but there's always a certain point where it goes too far. I'm not sure if anything similar to this has happened in history before, but I'm sure there have been moments where the government (or even just plain old hackers) have stolen and or released private information, especially when it comes to celebrities or big political faces.
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/19/headlines
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