alt Hacker NewsMy understanding of the story [1] is the CA claimed it was collecting data for psychology research, then turned around and used the data for political consulting.
> Cambridge Analytica then arranged an informed consent process for research in which several hundred thousand Facebook users would agree to complete a survey for payment that was only for academic use.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...
I mean the data was collected in 2013 and then used in 2016 for political consulting. I have to imagine the guy actually did try doing psychology research and then realized it was a dead end (or that the psychology pointed out you could predict voters).