Meet the Psychologist at the Center of Facebook's Data Scandal
- Cambridge University’s Kogan shared data with Trump-hired firm
- Kogan’s specialty is predicting behavior based on social media
Facebook Falls as Pressure Mounts on Zuckerberg Over Data Sharing
In a video published online in September, a social scientist named Alex Spectre made an earnest pitch for his new startup. Clad in the Silicon Valley uniform of open-collar shirt and blazer, Spectre boasted that his company -- Philometrics -- would revolutionize the way online surveys were done, making it easier for companies to design questionnaires that people would actually respond to on Facebook, Twitter or other sites. Crucially, he said, the surveys could predict the responses for large groups from a small number of respondents and micro-target ads better.
"The reality is working with big data, social media is incredibly difficult," said Spectre, who more commonly goes by Aleksandr Kogan, which he uses in his role as a Cambridge University researcher. "You want to work with people who have a lot of experience. You want to connect with people who have been working with these massive data sets."