Cambridge Analytica: Facebook's Big Data Scandal - Part II (with Kevin Roose and Casey Newton)

Summary

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SNAFU with Ed Helms

Episode: Cambridge Analytica: Facebook's Big Data Scandal - Part II
Guests: Kevin Roose (The New York Times, Hard Fork), Casey Newton (Platformer, Hard Fork)
Airdate: May 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode, the second part of SNAFU’s deep dive into the Cambridge Analytica scandal, explores the aftermath of Facebook’s historic data mishandling, the global political consequences, and the cultural transformation of Silicon Valley. Ed Helms is joined by tech journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, who combine investigative expertise with sharp wit as they break down one of the century’s greatest digital fiascos. The discussion traverses the shattering of Facebook’s reputation, congressional hearings with Mark Zuckerberg, Cambridge Analytica’s tactics and downfall, and the current state of tech-industry accountability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recap: The Cambridge Analytica Scandal (02:01)

• Helms recaps how a harmless-looking Facebook quiz led to massive data exploitation, affecting nearly 80 million users. Cambridge Analytica used the stolen data to micro-target political messages, notably during the 2016 Trump campaign.
• Notable Quote:
  “A seemingly harmless Facebook quiz turned into a full-blown data exploitation scheme… used said data to build psychological profiles of nearly 80 million users and then target them with manipulative political messaging.” — Ed Helms (02:01)

2. Cambridge Analytica Exposed: Espionage Tactics & Russian Ties (03:45)

• Undercover Channel 4 footage revealed CEO Alexander Nix outlining tactics akin to “a rejected Bond villain”—from honey traps and bribery to data-driven election manipulation worldwide.
• Cambridge Analytica even courted Russia’s Lukoil, pitching “psychographic messaging” for interference in elections, though no official work was done.
• Notable Quote:
  “He also casually discussed using data to influence elections across the globe... The fact that this meeting was taken is dark.” — Ed Helms (05:14)

3. Public Outrage & The “Delete Facebook” Movement (06:17)

• Spring 2018 saw social media and news dominated by the scandal. Public trust in Facebook plummeted.
• Newton:
  “I think it was a devastating blow to the trust that Americans had in Facebook that the company has truly never recovered from. …Reputationally, Cambridge Analytica was just huge for this company.” (07:05)
• The backlash didn’t curb Facebook usage—just its reputation.
• Roose:
  “It also brought Facebook more into the political sphere...Zuckerberg spent most of the next couple of years testifying before various legislative bodies and answering angry questions from lawmakers.” (07:53)

4. Accountability—Or Lack Thereof (08:40)

• Facebook executives learned about the data abuse in 2015 but accepted assurances the data was deleted.
• No user notification or substantive action. Helms notes the lack of accountability baked into big platforms.

5. Congressional Inaction & The Zuckerberg Hearings (10:18–15:32)

• Zuckerberg laid low for days, then faced Congress in tense, highly publicized hearings.
• Memorable Clip:
  Congressman: “Mr. Zuckerberg, would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night?”
  Zuckerberg: “No.” (12:32)
• The hearings, per Newton and Roose, were more about congressmen scoring viral clips than enacting reform.
• Newton:
  “The main product of these hearings was that the Congress members would ask him their gotcha question... and then they would clip that and put that on Instagram. …not actually address any of the underlying issues.” (14:26)
• No federal privacy law or meaningful regulation followed the spectacle.
• Roose:
  “Congress didn't do anything. …There was no lasting change that came out of this that made anyone's data any safer that originated in Congress.” (15:16)

6. Zuckerberg’s Pattern: Apologies Without Change (18:50)

• Roose recounts his immediate post-scandal interview with Zuckerberg, who insisted on Facebook’s “real responsibility.” In retrospect, Roose sees this as a pattern of superficial apologies.
• Roose:
  “Since the start of Facebook, basically there was a pattern where Facebook would do something…He would say, sorry...And then nothing would change.” (19:54)
• Newton:
  “We know who Mark Zuckerberg is at this point. He is a man who wants to win and will do almost anything to do that...All the other details are, you know, negotiable. And I think that's actually quite scary.” (20:52)

7. Cambridge Analytica’s Demise and Denial (21:32)

• FTC sued Cambridge Analytica; it went bankrupt in 2018. CEO Alexander Nix was barred from the industry (temporarily).
• The company denied wrongdoing until the end.
• Newton:
  “No one at Cambridge Analytica was sorry for what the company did, and few will be sorry to see it go.” (22:25, quoting his own coverage)

8. Tech’s Cultural Shift: From Virtue Signaling to Vice Signaling (23:38)

• Silicon Valley once professed lofty ideals, but Newton points to the Musk-era shift to unapologetic self-interest, rejected responsibility, and even “vice signaling.”
• Newton:
  “A lot of the other CEOs in Silicon Valley took a look at the fact that no matter how outrageous Elon Musk's behavior was, the value of his companies kept going up. And they said, why have I been paying lip service to all this corporate responsibility stuff? I don't have to do that. I'm just gonna do what I want.” (24:05)
• Roose:
  “If these CEOs used to be virtue signaling, they are now vice signaling. They want to be seen as sort of carefree bad boys who don't play by the rules...What is in is founder mode and the idea that you just have to sort of rule with an iron fist.” (25:03)

9. The Question of Virtues (26:25)

• Brief comic interlude, but serious undertones: Is it better to virtue signal and fall short or simply embrace vice?
• Newton:
  “We should still have basic principles that we operate by that, you know, create a better world.” (26:33)

10. Lawsuits, Settlements, and Real-World Impact (30:14)

• Cambridge Analytica’s actual influence may have been exaggerated—it was a “scam of a scam.”
• In 2022, Meta settled a class action for $725 million (~$30 per claimant), and paid record fines.
• Newton (dryly):
  “I think everyone who was really upset about Donald Trump's election and some of the underhanded tactics that Cambridge Analytica employed to get there, all they really wanted was $30.” (30:56)
• Improved privacy controls followed, but the damage was done.

11. Ties to Brexit & Missed AI Opportunity (32:15–33:01)

• Scandal’s UK dimension: Cambridge Analytica implicated in Brexit.
• Roose:
  “They had sort of run, you know, their same psychographic operation on the UK and Brexit wound up being successful.” (32:15)
• Facebook/Meta fell behind in AI not for lack of ability, but because they were distracted by fallout from the scandal.
• Roose:
  “I think that one of the reasons that they were late to this new wave of AI...is that they were just really distracted. And part of that distraction was this Cambridge Analytica business.” (33:01)

12. State of Tech Leadership & Optimism for the Future (35:32)

• Helms asks if tech leadership is regaining integrity.
• Newton:
  “If I have any optimism, it's that we're sort of reaching the nadir...I think the fever is to pass, and I do not think it is going to kill the patient.” (35:32)
• Roose:
  “Imagine how scared people would be right now about AI if Mark Zuckerberg and Meta were the leading AI companies in the world...As much as people are terrified of this stuff…we're in a better place now because Meta fell behind.” (36:53)
• Helms (humor with a dark edge):
  “Well, my only pushback on that is that I don't feel like Sam Altman is any better than Mark Zuckerberg and in some ways scares me even more…ChatGPT is reflecting Sam Altman, who is now widely reported to be a very untrustworthy person and also a bullshit artist, which is what the app is doing in those moments.” (37:37)
• Final consensus: Tech’s dark period could end, but skepticism is warranted.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Congressional Hearings:
  “The main product of these hearings was...they would clip that and then put that on Instagram.” — Casey Newton (14:26)

• On Zuckerberg:
  “Since the start of Facebook...there was a pattern where Facebook would do something...He would say, sorry, I'm sorry, I feel a real responsibility to get this right, or something like that. And then nothing would change.” — Kevin Roose (19:54)

• On Tech’s New Attitude:
  “If these CEOs used to be virtue signaling, they are now vice signaling.” — Kevin Roose (25:03)

• Dark Satire on Settlements:
  “All they really wanted was $30. And so when that came down, I think people were like, all right, that actually was like a, that was a fair deal.” — Casey Newton (30:56)

• On Optimism:
  “I think the fever is to pass, and I do not think it is going to kill the patient.” — Casey Newton (35:32)

• AI and Meta’s Distraction:
  “I think we're in a better place now because Meta fell behind during that moment than we would be if they had really recognized that something was shifting.” — Kevin Roose (36:53)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:01 — Recap of Cambridge Analytica’s data exploitation
• 03:45 — Undercover exposé of Alexander Nix and global influence
• 06:17 — Public backlash against Facebook; loss of trust
• 07:05 — Casey Newton on reputational fallout
• 07:53 — Kevin Roose on Facebook’s new political status
• 10:18 — Zuckerberg’s silence and avoidance
• 12:32 — Congressional hotel privacy exchange
• 14:26–15:16 — Congressional hearings described as spectacle with no real change
• 18:50 — Kevin Roose’s interview with Zuckerberg and patterns of apology
• 21:32 — Cambridge Analytica’s legal demise and denial
• 23:38–26:33 — Silicon Valley’s cultural shift; virtue/vices debate
• 30:14 — Meta’s settlement and efficacy of class action
• 32:15 — Cambridge Analytica and Brexit
• 33:01 — Facebook missing the AI wave due to distractions
• 35:32–37:37 — Reflections on current tech leadership and optimism

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Overall Tone

Conversational, darkly humorous, and sharply insightful. Helms, Roose, and Newton blend wry satire and journalistic rigor, holding power to account while never forgetting the absurdity (and humanity) inherent in history’s biggest blunders.

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Conclusion

Cambridge Analytica’s debacle didn’t just change Facebook and shake Silicon Valley—it symbolized a turning point in public trust, regulatory (in)action, and the self-image of tech giants. And while culture trends reactively through phases of virtue and vice, as the episode underscores, the patient may yet survive—though perhaps not without another SNAFU or two along the way.

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Transcript

[Kevin Roose]

I think it's important to have both virtues and vices.

[Ed Helms]

All right. Ooh, elaborate, Kevin. What are your favorite vices?

[Casey Newton]

He's a huge gambler.

[Ed Helms]

Of course we contain multitudes.

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[Ed Helms]

hello snafu fans, and welcome back to snafu, the podcast about history's greatest screw ups. I am your host, Ed Helms, and today we are diving into part two of our Cambridge Analytica story because this one was just too insane to try to squeeze into one episode. It is just absolutely bonkers. And of course, I am still joined for part two by my incredible guests, the brilliant Kevin Roose and Casey Newton of the New York Times tech podcast podcast Hard Fork. They are two of the most delightful, hilarious, brilliant and insightful people you could ever hope to have on a podcast. And they're also incredibly well informed on this particular story because they both covered it as reporters when it happened back in the mid 2010s. All right, so I highly suggest, if you haven't already, go back and listen to the previous episode, just so you're fully up to speed. But you know what? You don't have to. I'm going to give you a quick little recap here. So we're all in this together. All right? Previously on Snafu. A seemingly harmless Facebook quiz turned into a full blown data exploitation scheme as millions of users had their information quietly scraped from Facebook and handed over to a nefarious political strategy operation called Cambridge Analytica, which then used said data to build psychological profiles of nearly 80 million users and then target them with manipulative political messaging. This very sketchy firm was employed by both the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns during the 2016 presidential election. Kevin Roose actually landed an interview with Zuck in the immediate aftermath of this giant scandal. And it's a wild story. Kevin was given like and his colleague, they were given, like, 20 minutes to prepare for this epic interview, which was probably something of a psycho power play on Zuckerberg's part anyway. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wiley also had some very choice words when he described the operation as targeting people's, quote, inner demons. And he described the entire endeavor as, quote, Steve Bannon's psychological warfare mindfuck tool. Yeah, yeah, that's some good quote. I mean, that's what it is. All right, so whether you're just joining us or you're back for more, you are now fully caught up, so let's dive right back into it. We just heard about Wiley's quotes, the psychological warfare mindfuck tool. Very soon after this, Channel 4 in the UK aired undercover footage of Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, who had recently told Parliament that the company hadn't used Facebook data, which is a statement that did not age well. In the recordings captured over a series of meetings with a reporter posing as a wealthy prospective client, Nix laid out a menu of tactics that sounded less like campaign strategy and more like a rejected Bond villain. P honey traps with sex workers, bribery, blackmail, the works. And just to round things out, he also casually discussed using data to influence elections across the globe. It went further than that. Wiley's documents revealed that Cambridge Analytica had even pitched its services to Russia in 2014. They met with representatives from Lukoil, a Russian oil company that often acted as a surrogate for Putin. The topic on the table was, unsurprisingly, psychographic messaging to help Russia interfere in foreign elections. Now, it needs to be noted they didn't end up doing any official work for Lukoil or the Russian government. But the fact that this meeting was taken is dark. We're used to operating through different vehicles in the shadows. And I look forward to building a very long term and secretive relationship with you. Now, I believe that was the perspective, wealthy perspective client meeting, not the Lukoil meeting. But, but you just get a sense of this guy, what he's fit to.

[Kevin Roose]

Opening line on Tinder.

[Casey Newton]

I think yes, yes. Would love to have that very long term and secretive relationship. I asked to have a long term and secretive relationship with Ed, but he said no, you have to come on the podcast and we're going to release it publicly. So.

[Ed Helms]

But it can be long term.

[Casey Newton]

Okay, good.

[Ed Helms]

So by March And April of 2018, this story was everywhere. You couldn't open news apps without bumping into Cambridge Analytica. The idea that your memes and likes and casual quiz results might, might have been repurposed in political targeting, it just hit people hard. I think it hit all of us in this, like, visceral way. It just felt like suddenly what we thought was harmless Internet background noise was not. It was more insidious, perhaps. Outrage followed. Hashbag delete. Facebook started trending. Tens of millions of accounts were implicated in the data exposure or included in the data exposure, and users were not happy to discover that they had been participating in a system they didn't realize exist, existed. Did that backlash affect Facebook?

[Casey Newton]

I think it was a devastating blow to the trust that Americans had in Facebook that the company has truly never recovered from. When you look at polls of trust in American companies, Facebook typically ranks around the bottom of that. And while it hadn't been a particularly popular company before then, it still had a much better reputation than it did before that. So, yeah, I think Cambridge Analytica was the beginning of the moment that Americans said, this company seems kind of shady and it sucks. Now. Interestingly, that did not stop Americans from continuing to use all of its products for many hours a day. But it is also true that reputationally, Cambridge Analytica was just huge for this company.

[Kevin Roose]

Well, and I think it also brought Facebook more into the political sphere because people, I think, in politics have kind of a varying level of sophistication and familiarity with technology. But like political campaigns and political influence is something they do understand. And so I think, you know, Zuckerberg spent most of the next couple of years, like, testifying before various legislative bodies and answering angry questions from lawmakers. And this became like a huge headache for them politically. And so I think that was maybe the biggest sort of long term consequence of this for Facebook was that it just, it made them into a political actor in a new way. And I think that ended up being very hard for them.

[Ed Helms]

That makes a lot of sense. Now, the million dollar question, did anyone in power actually face any real repercussions? And the answer is kind of, but also not really. So let's dig into that. First off, Facebook executives apparently knew all this was happening on their platform. They found out in 2015 that Kogan's app had been mining data. But when they looked into it, Cambridge Analytica claimed that all the data had been deleted. You guys have been mentioning this so far, and so Facebook just kind of let it go. Now, did they tell any of their users that their data had been taken? Of course not. There was no need to do this. I guess. I feel like the scale and complexity of these platforms just makes it really easy to sweep things under the rug. Like, you just, you don't have to. You don't have to own up to things so much. Like, what is the percentage of healthy activity versus unhealthy activity in a Facebook office?

[Casey Newton]

Yeah, I think that the way that the company thinks about its core business would really shock people. They sort of dress it up in a lot of, like, metaphors. And they don't always say out loud exactly what they're doing, but, like, make no mistake, like, the longer that you stare at the app, the more money that company makes. And so, like, that is what that company is built to do is to, like, get you to stare at it. And yeah, that's had maybe a lot of negative downstream consequences over the years.

[Ed Helms]

When the Cambridge Analytica data leak was revealed, of course, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg went silent for five whole days. Kevin, on March 21st of 2018, you wrote a New York Times article called Missing from Facebook's Crisis Colon Mark Zuckerberg, where you said that since the scandal broke, neither Mr. Zuckerberg nor Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, has made any public appearances. I'm now quoting you to you, but I love it. Mr. Zuckerberg's last public post on book was a March 2 photo of himself and his wife Priscilla Chan, baking Hamentaschen cookies to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim. Ms. Sandberg's most recent post was a four day old photo from her child's debate competition. It feels like they're terrified. Like this, this is, this is four days of. Of. Of what? Like, what do you. What's in that moment for them?

[Kevin Roose]

I mean, I think they were trying to figure out what had happened. They were clearly surprised by this. They were looking into the various actions they had taken against Hogan and Cambridge Analytica. They were trying to figure out how this had sort of slipped through their systems. But they were also just on their back feet and they were. You have to remember, this was coming just shortly after all of the Russia stuff, which sort of swirled around them in the aftermath of the 2016 election. And there were, you know, investigations and congressional hearings and the Mueller report, like, all this was happening, you know, roughly in the same period of a couple years. And I think for them, they were just trying to figure out, okay, well, like, is this sort of an all hands on deck, code red incident, or is this going to blow over soon?

[Ed Helms]

I'm going to jump now into Zuck's testifying in front of Congress. This is. This was a wild media circus. He gets obviously pulled in to answer a lot of questions. And there's some kind of interesting moments. We've got one here to take a listen to. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel

[Kevin Roose]

you stayed in last night? No,

[Ed Helms]

I'm just loving Congress's approach here. They're making Zuckerberg feel like his privacy is maybe that he holds it at a different level than those of his customers and that that's not real chill.

[Kevin Roose]

Maybe he was just embarrassed because it was like a Best Western.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah,

[Kevin Roose]

the Four Seasons was all full.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, somehow I doubt that, but I do. Yeah. I just think that there were some ways in which this hearing was pretty effective in just sort of channeling the bad will of what's afoot here. In later testimony, Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook probably should have banned Cambridge Analytica back in 2015. Instead of accepting their assurances that they had deleted the harvested data, Zuckerberg took responsibility, saying, it was my mistake and I'm sorry. I started Facebook. I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens here. And just reading that, I also. I realized that in my cadence, it sounded like I said, and I'm sorry I started Facebook. Which is not what he said. He said, I'm sorry, period. I started Facebook. But I kind of like the other interpretation. Well, Zuckerberg, this is all well and good, but sometimes a simple apology doesn't cut it when the personal information of 80 million people is stolen on your watch, Casey, on June 7, 2018, you wrote a column in the Verge called Congress roasted Facebook on tv, but won't hear any bills to regulate it. So did Zuckerberg testifying accomplish anything? Was it Was it all just kind of a dog and pony show?

[Casey Newton]

My view is that the congressional hearings really did not accomplish very much. I got frustrated because he wound up doing a bunch of these hearings over the next few years. Typically, somebody would ask him a question, he would get five words into the answer, they would interrupt him and move on to their next question. So it all just sort of felt useless. And one of the really sort of funny things that emerged was that the main product of these hearings was that the Congress members would ask him their gotcha question, they would interrupt him and try to look tough and sort of push back on him, and then they would clip that and then put that on Instagram. So it was like they were sort of using his platform to like burnish their own reputations, but not actually address any of the underlying issues that they were allegedly mad about.

[Kevin Roose]

Well, and critically, like Congress didn't do anything. You know, they didn't pass a federal privacy law. There was no lasting change that came out of this that made anyone's data any safer. That originated in Congress.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, that's what, that's, that's unusual for Congress. That feels weird that they didn't do anything.

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[Ed Helms]

Let's get back to your interview in those days right after KE where you did have you and your colleague did have that chance to talk directly to Mark Zuckerberg. There's a pretty poignant moment in that interview where you asked Mark if he felt guilty about the role Facebook is playing in the world. He said, I don't know that it's possible to know every issue that you're gonna face down the road, but we have a real responsibility to take all these issues seriously as they come up and work with experts and people around the world to make sure we solve them and do a good job for our community. At another point in the interview, he reiterates that the primary mission of Facebook is to connect people. Now, I think at this point we all feel that that's a pretty tired canard. But I'm curious at that time and being on the phone and hearing the tenor of his voice, did you believe that he was being sincere in that moment about Facebook's larger mission, about their sort of sense of integrity and this quote, real responsibility to take these things seriously?

[Kevin Roose]

I don't know what response I had at the time, but looking back on it now, I see that this is just what he does or what he did for many years, since the start of Facebook, basically there was a pattern where Facebook would do something, whether it was changing the news feed or taking away some feature that people liked, or implementing some new feature that people didn't like. And he would say, sorry, I'm sorry, I feel a real responsibility to get this right, or something like that. And then nothing would change or they would walk back part of the change, but keep the rest of it. He did this a lot and this was a particularly high stakes example of this, but I think it fit with the pattern.

[Ed Helms]

Do we need to go to couples therapy with Mark Zuckerberg as a population?

[Casey Newton]

I mean, I think we know who Mark Zuckerberg is at this point. He is a man who wants to win and will do almost anything to do that. But like, that is the thing that is important to him. It is growing a big thing. His legacy is very important. He wants to be remembered as like a sort of, you know, very important inventor. All the other details are, you know, negotiable. And I think that's actually quite scary. And as the years have gone on, we've sort of seen that, like the explanation that he gave Kevin, he gave it because that was what the world wanted to hear at the time. But then as long as. But then when the sort of world moved on, his explanations could move on too.

[Ed Helms]

Well, despite everything, Zuckerberg got away basically scot free. But what about Cambridge Analytica? So the fallout for them was more straightforward. The FTC sued the company and by May 2018, it had filed for bankruptcy. Alexander Nix, the CEO, didn't exactly walk away clean either. In 2020, the FTC barred him from holding directorships or working in similar data driven political operations. The list of conduct attached to that ban included bribery, honey trap schemes, voter disengagement tactics and covert information operations aimed at discrediting political opponents. The fine print, of course, is that the ban is time limited, which means, doing the math, he is set to be eligible to return to this field in September of 2027.

[Casey Newton]

And we're all rooting for him to get back in the game. You got this, Alex. We're rooting for you.

[Ed Helms]

He paid his debts to society. Come on. I'm sure he turned around. He learned a lot of lessons. Casey, in your article from the Verge titled Cambridge Analytica died because it Couldn't stop playing the victim, you wrote Cambridge Analytica was nothing if not consistent. After nearly two months of scand, the Trump campaign's one time data analytics firm died as it lived, denying it ever did anything wrong and excoriating the journalists who reported about the ways in which it misused data. No one at Cambridge Analytica was sorry for what the company did, and few will be sorry to see it go. I love your writing, both of you guys. I, I truly, it's like, there's just a. It's like a little chippy, you know, and, but, but also just deeply honest and attached to. I think you guys are coming from a place of deep integrity and I really appreciate that. This is obviously the classic deny, deny, deny move, which we see so much in the political sphere now. Do you think it's just as prevalent in the tech world? I don't have a sense of that. I mean, obviously it's de rigueur in the political space.

[Casey Newton]

What specifically? Just this kind of just like deny

[Ed Helms]

everything, take no responsibility. I mean, we were just talking about how Zuckerberg is a little bit of sort of like Pablum supplier.

[Casey Newton]

But I mean, my view on this is that Silicon Valley at the very least used to pay more lip service to corporate responsibility. You know, I started covering tech in 2010 and I, you know, spent the first decade just hearing companies talk endlessly about all of the good that they were doing in the world and how they were going to sort of change everything around us for the better. I think think the moment that changed was when Elon Musk bought Twitter. Because Elon Musk did not really pretend that he. I mean, he would make noises sometimes about Twitter saving civilization, but it was also sort of like lofty and ridiculous. I think no one took it seriously. But then in the meantime, he would fire the team doing content moderation. He would post incredibly offensive things online all the time. He would later laid off many of his employees and a lot of the other CEOs in Silicon Valley took a look at the fact that no matter how outrageous Elon Musk's behavior was, the value of his companies kept going up. And they said, why have I been paying lip service to all this corporate responsibility stuff? I don't have to do that. I'm just gonna do what I want. And so we're now sort of living in, like, that dark world where no one feels any. Like they can sort of get away with the stuff that they have been wanting to do the whole time.

[Kevin Roose]

Well, and it's. I would say it's even like, it's even gone further than that to the point where, you know, if. If these CEOs used to be virtue signaling, they are now vice signaling.

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[Kevin Roose]

They want to be seen as sort of carefree bad boys who don't play by the rules, because that is sort of the. The vibe in this class of executives. Now. It's not cool if you're a CEO to be bossed around by your employees or to take cues about how to run your company from. From anyone else. What is in is founder mode and the idea that you just have to sort of rule with an iron fist. So I think there's been a real cultural shift in Silicon Valley, and Mark Zuckerberg is a great example of that. You know, you will notice that he no longer apologizes for things when he went. When, you know, Meta, as it's now called, does something that gets a lot of people upset. You don't see him doing these sort of apologetic press tours and saying, oh, I feel so much responsibility over this, because that is not the. It's not required de rigueur to borrow your French phrase, that CEOs should do that anymore.

[Ed Helms]

Can we go back to virtue signaling? Yeah, like, can we just. What's wrong? Like, virtue signaling is mildly annoying, but vice signaling is, like, deeply unsettling.

[Casey Newton]

Right. Also, I would hope that even the people complaining about virtue signaling would admit that it's still good to have virtues, you know.

[Ed Helms]

Thank you.

[Casey Newton]

We should still have basic principles that we operate by that, you know, create a better world. So, yeah, I would love to see that.

[Ed Helms]

If the accusation is that you're not living up to the virtues that you're espousing, I can deal with that a lot more than just espousing horseshit as, like, your value system. Anyway, that's my.

[Kevin Roose]

I think it's important to have both virtues and vices.

[Ed Helms]

All right. Oh, elaborate, Kevin. What are your favorite vices?

[Kevin Roose]

He's a huge gambler inside every person There's a. You know, of course we contain multitudes. Yeah.

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[Ed Helms]

emerged throughout our discussion, but it's worth putting a fine point on the fact that it came out later that Cambridge Analytica's efforts may not have had nearly as act as they intended or claimed, which perhaps it really was just a giant scam, a scam of a scam. But Cambridge Analytica's shuddering wasn't the end for this case. Finally, in 2022 came the drumroll please. Class action lawsuit. Facebook. I'm sorry now. Meta agreed to pay 725 million to settle legal action over the data breach. A victory, but you know, a record 28 million people had staked their claim, equating to an average payout of $30. Was this a win?

[Casey Newton]

Yeah, this was huge. I think everyone who was really upset about Donald Trump's election and some of the underhanded tactics that Cambridge Analytica employed to get there, all they really wanted was $30. And so when that came down, I think people were like, all right, that actually was like a, that was a fair deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kevin Roose]

Hey, I retired on that $30 settlement.

[Ed Helms]

Facebook did also pay a record $5 billion fine to the US government. The previous record holder was Equifax, who had been charged 425. So that's a pretty big jump. On top of that, There was an SEC penalty of 100 million. The UK Information Commissioner's Office fined them £500,000. Afterward, according to the Guardian and Channel 4, Facebook, quote, modified their corporate structure to ensure executives are more accountable for users privacy. And they also locked down, quote, their APIs, as you reported, Casey. And that's the extent of it, guys. That's the whole kit and caboodle of Cambridge Analytica, which I always want to say Encyclopedia Britannica. Whenever the name comes up, that's the first thing that pops in my head. But before we dive into just a couple of wrap up reflections, did we miss anything? Was there any, like, crucial part of this narrative that I skipped?

[Casey Newton]

Well, I mean, one of the reasons that the British press, press seized on this story and sort of led a lot of the coverage was that it was also implicated in Brexit, of course. And there was a lot of thinking that the same forces that wanted Trump to win also wanted Brexit to happen. And so they had sort of run, you know, their same psychographic operation on the UK and Brexit wound up being successful. So I think that's an important thing to point out because even though, again, I do believe that a lot of the fears around what Cambridge Analytica actually did were overstated, the fact that it was implicated in these two kind of like epochal shifts in Western civilization within a couple years of each other is one of the big reasons why it caught fire.

[Kevin Roose]

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I would just add one more sort of coda to this story, which is that I think this scandal cost Facebook in one particular way. And I'm not sure about this, but I'm just piecing together some threads here, which is that in 2018, as they were dealing with this, this was also the year that researchers at places like OpenAI and Google were starting to experiment with these new kinds of AI systems. At the time, Facebook was one of the leading AI research companies. They had a lot of researchers. They had this big division, and they basically missed this wave in part, I think, because they were so distracted by all of the political controversies and the testimonies and the hearings and the fines and the regulation threats. And I think it was just if you could sort of speculate that these things have kind of a butterfly effect. I think that one of the reasons that they were late to this new wave of AI that is now, they were now spending a lot of money to try to catch up in, is that they were just really distracted. And part of that distraction was this Cambridge Analytica business.

[Ed Helms]

In summation, guys, I just have one last broad, reflective question. I love that Zuckerberg's original mantra was move fast and break things. And then in 2014, they changed it to move fast with stable infrastructure. Of course, this is before all of this stuff broke down. So apparently they didn't stick to it very well. But it does indicate an awareness of some of their liabilities and awareness that perhaps they're not sort of signaling ethics forward in the way that they should be. They should be doing better. Cambridge Analytica was a huge misstep. But I'm curious, for both you guys so entrenched in the tech industry right now, do you feel like the general sense of the integrity of the leadership in tech is trending better, or. It feels like we went through a phase, like you were just describing, Casey, where maybe Musk taking over Twitter was like the inflection point of a downward trend. Where are we headed? And please tap into your inner optimism here.

[Casey Newton]

Oh, man. I'm trying to think of an optimistic take on this that I actually believe. I think that if I have any optimism, it's that we're sort of reaching the nadir. You know, you're right. Like we have seen over the past few years, Most of the CEOs try to align themselves with just these sort of very exploitative, hyper capitalist forces where they seem like they scarcely care about any individual, like one of their customers. And I think that that is just going to burn itself out. Like I do. Like, I feel like right now we are. We are being consumed by a fever. And I think the fever is to pass, and I do not think it is going to kill the patient. And I think that once that fever has passed, people are going to be looking around and they're once again going to align themselves with, you know, companies and CEOs and political leaders who do actually signal some virtues and live up to them and seem to sort of have their best interests at heart. So I think we are in a pretty dark time for that at the moment, but I don't think it'll last forever.

[Kevin Roose]

I'll offer one more thread of optimism, please.

[Ed Helms]

But first, let me just say that was beautiful. That was such a deep dig for optimism, and I believed it and I really appreciate it.

[Casey Newton]

Thank you.

[Ed Helms]

All right, Kevin, your turn.

[Kevin Roose]

Mine is optimistic in a slightly different way, which is related to the last discussion about AI and how Meta had missed out on this moment in part because they were distracted. Imagine how scared people would be right now about AI if Mark Zuckerberg and Meta were the leading AI companies in the world. As much as people are terrified of this stuff, taking jobs and creating cyber attacks and blowing up the world, I think we're in a better place now because Meta fell behind during that moment than we would be if they had really recognized that something was shifting and moved to act on it faster. So that's not exactly optimism, but it's kind of like a it could be worse moment.

[Ed Helms]

Well. Well, my only pushback on that is that I don't feel like Sam Altman is any better than Mark Zuckerberg and in some ways scares me even more. I have to say that there's. You guys have seen these trending videos where people kind of catch chatgpt either being overconfident or not able to spell or not able to use a timer and things like that. I love those. They're very funny and entertaining, but they're also incredibly revealing that these AIs are just not operating the way we think they are at all. And we've fully anthropomorphized them at this point, but they're flawed. They're deeply flawed. These incredibly simple intellectual tests are failing. And also the thing that's scaring me about those is the confidence with which it pushes through them. And it pushes through with an arrogance and a kind of like this reassuring thing that you're wrong. It's like the tone is that you're wrong and that you've asked the wrong question or that you've done by catching them, you're sort of. You're wrong. And I find that deeply unnerving and weirdly reflective of the leadership of ChatGPT. And I don't understand the technology, but in the ways that institutions often can reflect their leaders, that feels like such a literal way in which ChatGPT is reflecting Sam Altman, who is now widely reported to be a very untrustworthy person and also a bullshit artist, which is what the app is doing in those moments. So.

[Kevin Roose]

Well, I was trying to lend a note of optimism, but you took us right back down to hell. So I just want to note for

[Ed Helms]

the record that I tried. I'm going to pull you down in this whirlpool. No. But I don't know, did that even make sense, what I'm saying there?

[Kevin Roose]

I think it's a fair point.

[Casey Newton]

Now, it's also true that all of the apps hallucinate in the same way, but is there a sort of general overconfidence and cockiness and bullshittery about the tech world? Yes, absolutely.

[Ed Helms]

Well, guys, this has been an absolute delight, and I truly have learned a lot from you, which is really exciting, and I just want to thank you for being so damn delightful and brilliant. Thanks for coming on.

[Kevin Roose]

Thanks for having us.

[Casey Newton]

Thank you, Ed. This was so fun.

[Ed Helms]

Snafu is a production of Iheart podcasts and Snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company Post production and creative support from Good Egg Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner and Andy Kim, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by Matt Gossen and the Collected Works Legal review from Dan Welch, Megan Halson and Caroline Jo Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horne, Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman, and Nikki Ator. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book the Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com thanks for listening and see you next week. Foreign.

[Casey Newton]

It's Kel Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earth, Hearsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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