The Academic at the Center of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal Is Speaking Out

Aleksandr Kogan, the Russian-American academic at the center of the Cambridge Analytica controversy, has been relatively vocal yet strikingly calm in public since news broke that the company had acquired personal information from more than 50 million Facebook accounts and later used it to boost Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Cambridge Analytica and Facebook have both blamed Kogan for the imbroglio, though he's denied any wrongdoing. In Facebook's first statement disclosing Cambridge Analytica's activities on Friday, the company accused Kogan of lying and breaking its policies. According to its narrative, Kogan gave data he had gathered from users and their friends through his personality prediction Facebook app to the political consulting firm. Developers are not allowed to give such data to third parties.