Aleksandr Kogan, who claims to be a scapegoat in the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica controversy, accused other players in the scandal of lying as he appeared today before government officials.
Looking relaxed and even cracking a couple of jokes, Kogan talked MPs led by Damian Collins through the timeline of his involvement with Cambridge University, SCL Elections and Facebook. However, questions ground to a half when he revealed he was under a non-disclosure agreement with Facebook that prevented him talking about his relationship with the social network.
Watch the live video of Kogan appearing before a UK government inquiry into fake news below.
Dr Kogan is a key player in the revelations surrounding Facebook and data consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica. A researcher at the University of Cambridge, Kogan created a Facebook app in 2013 that harvested anonymous user data from the millions of Facebook users. Later he created another quiz app that collected user data with names, and sold the data on to a company called SCL with ties to controversial company Cambridge Analytica. Although he said he never had a contract with Cambridge Analytica, Kogan admitted that he worked closely with its staff including suspended CEO Alexander Nix, who has already faced the UK committee.
Among their conversations, Kogan said he and Nix discussed campaigning in UK elections. However he speculated his work may not have affected Donald Trump's campaign in the US Presidential election after Ted Cruz's campaign were disappointed with earlier results.
During today's inquiry, Kogan accused both Nix and SCL whistleblower Christopher Wylie of lying about their involvement. Kogan accused Nix of "total fabrications" in his earlier testimony to the committee. He also said that Wylie has "invented many things", including a claim that Wylie broke off their relationship when he realised Kogan was pursuing a commercial rather than academic enterprise.
Kogan also answered questions about his former business partner Joseph Chancellor, who now works for Facebook, and a business address that Damian Collins suggested could be linked to Russian money laundering. He declined to answer some questions about Facebook because he's under a legal non-disclosure agreement with Facebook.
Kogan claimed he thought the use of Facebook user data for political purpose was "business as usual", saying he didn't think Facebook's policies were valid -- and besides, he didn't read them.
He previously claimed he had assumed his actions were acceptable. "I think that the core idea we had," he told 60 Minutes this weekend, "that everybody knows and nobody cares, was wrong. For that, I am sincerely sorry."
Kogan and others from the academic world are sometimes allowed access to Facebook data for the purposes of research -- often in collaboration with the university itself. Kogan told the UK committee that Facebook provided anonymised data to him for academic research separately from the data sold on to SCL and Cambridge Analytica, without a signed agreement or any requirement to delete or return it. He said that Facebook later asked him to delete the anonymous data in 2015 and he did so. When discussing the deletion of data, he described it as "an honour system".
After the revelations surfaced in March, Kogan said he was being made "a scapegoat" by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, which suspended the researcher from the platform.
During today's inquiry, Kogan smiled as he explained why he had previously changed his name to "Dr Spectre", saying he was inspired by his father's surgeon with a similar name as he claimed ignorance of the evil organisation in the James Bond series.
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