That Facebook quiz might not be so innocent

Political consultants can target voters discreetly through social media

The recent disclosures that Russians bought ads from Facebook, Google and Twitter to target US voters in 2016 have left lawmakers investigating how to prevent foreign interference in future elections. But there’s another alarming problem that Congress also needs to address — how to prevent domestic and foreign organisations from duping Americans out of information they unwittingly share on social media —and using the data to try to sway elections.

During the 2016 election, the Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica, an American affiliate of a British consulting firm, which built psychological profiles of over 200 million Americans in part by using