Facebook just suspended another analytics company

Author: Jack Morse / Source: Mashable

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Facebook allows a third-party analytics company access to user data, conducts poor oversight of said company, and then is caught flat-footed when asked about the situation by a journalist.

Yeah, it’s happened again.

And no, you’re not crazy for getting that Cambridge Analytica déjà vu. Facebook was forced to suspend Boston-based Crimson Hexagon today after the Wall Street Journal reported on the company’s contracts with a Kremlin-tied Russian nonprofit and the U.S. government.

Crimson Hexagon, which bills itself as having “instant access to the world’s largest volume of unstructured text and images across social, online public, and enterprise-held data sources,” apparently gathered and analyzed public Facebook data on behalf of clients.

At issue for Facebook, reports the Journal, is whether or not Crimson Hexagon’s government contracts are in violation of Facebook policy. Apparently the Facebook execs hadn’t thought too much about it until reporters asked.

“Facebook has…

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