During a nearly four-hour grilling before Parliament Wednesday, Alexander Nix, former CEO of the now defunct[1] data firm Cambridge Analytica[2], faced the ghosts of his past.
In the green-carpeted room where the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee interrogated Nix for the second time this year, the audience included Christopher Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica employee who blew the whistle on the surreptitious harvesting of up to 87 million Facebook users' data[3]; Carole Cadwalladr, the Guardian reporter who broke the story; Shahmir Sanni, another whistleblower who alleges that the Brexit VoteLeave campaign flouted campaign finance laws during the referendum; and David Carroll, an American academic who has filed a legal suit against Cambridge Analytica[4], seeking access to his personal data file.
But of all of the individuals who have challenged Nix over the last three months, the one whose words have gotten him in the most trouble may well be Nix himself. In February, just a month before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke open in earnest, Nix testified before this very committee about Cambridge Analytica's work. Months later, following steady revelations about the company's misdeeds, the committee decided that Nix's initial answers were at best incomplete, and at worst, intentionally misleading.
'By no stretch of the imagination can you be seen as the victim.'
Brendan O'Hara, UK Parliament
The questioning started contentiously, as committee chairman Damian Collins declined to let Nix deliver an opening statement that he said would clarify misconceptions about his prior testimony. When Nix told the eight members gathered that he had to "insist" on giving the statement, Collins swiftly shut him down. "I'm sorry, sir," Collins said. "It’s not your place to insist."
Throughout his testimony, Nix worked to frame himself