LONDON: A Cambridge University academic who harvested data on millions of Facebook users said he has been made a scapegoat by the social network and a UK-based political consultancy that is accused of trying to sway public opinion for Donald Trump.
Facebook has been rocked this week by a whistleblower who said that Cambridge Analytica, a UK-based political firm hired by Trump for the 2016 campaign, had improperly accessed information on 50 million Facebook users.
The company has lost $60 billion of its stock market value over the last two days over fears that its dealings with Cambridge Analytica might damage its reputation, deter advertisers and invite tougher regulation.
Facebook has said the data was harvested by Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology academic, who created an app on the platform that was downloaded by 270,000 people. It says he then violated its policies by passing the data to Cambridge Analytica.
“The events of the past week have been a total shell shock,” Kogan told the BBC. “My view is that I’m being basically used as a scapegoat by both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica when... we thought we were doing something that was really normal.
“We were assured by Cambridge Analytica that everything was perfectly legal and within the terms of service.”
Alexander Nix, the head of Cambridge Analytica who was suspended on Tuesday, said in a secretly recorded video that his company had played a decisive role in Trump’s election victory.
But Kogan said the accuracy of the dataset had been “exaggerated” by Cambridge Analytica, and that the information was more likely to hurt Trump’s campaign.
Academic behind Facebook breach says he is a ‘scapegoat’
Academic behind Facebook breach says he is a ‘scapegoat’
Eurovision Sport, Camb.ai to provide live subtitling for Paralympic Winter Games
- Partnership aims to increase accessibility for all audiences
- Milano Cortina Games run from Friday to March 15
LONDON: Eurovision Sport, the European Broadcasting Union’s free-to-air streaming platform, will provide live and on-demand subtitling for coverage of the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games in partnership with AI language company Camb.ai
The service will run across all competition days, allowing viewers to stream all six Paralympic Winter Games sports on Eurovision Sport with real-time subtitles. The Games open on Friday and run through March 15.
Camb.ai will supply contextual speech-to-text transcription for both live and catch-up coverage, which the organizers said would support accessibility without altering the editorial integrity of broadcasts.
Eurovision Sport Managing Director Alan Fagan said the aim was to make the Games available to “the widest possible audience,” by scaling up digital accessibility across every event on the platform.
The initiative forms part of the EBU’s most extensive digital coverage of a Paralympic Winter Games to date and complements member broadcasters’ linear output.
It also reflects a wider industry push to make live sport easier to follow for viewers watching without sound, people with hearing impairments and audiences consuming content on demand.
Camb.ai’s Chief Technology Officer Akshat Prakash said the company was proud to deepen its partnership with Eurovision Sport, describing the platform as a leader in applying new technology to sports coverage.
The two organizations began working together in 2024, when they delivered what they described as Europe’s first AI-powered real-time translated sports commentary during European Athletics events.
