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A source has revealed in confidence to Westminster Times that Facebook agreed to participate in a programme developed by Oxbridge Analytics which subsequently steered the results of the General Election in which former Prime Minister Nichola Pankhurst was re-elected with one of the largest majorities in Parliament due to their collaboration in a coalition with Vox Populi.

Not only did Facebook OB agree to participate in this programme, they also helped funding it. Sources claim that Oxbridge Analytics received a sum of up to Fl. 20 million in total to conduct their researches and test various applications. An independent auditor that looked into this case upon the request of Westminster Times says that "[Oxbridge Analytics] got at least one million Florines directly from Facebook OB, and many more indirectly through various sister companies and other projects".

The programme on which these companies were working, called Interceptor, was used to harvest information from millions of users throughout Orange-Bourgogne. It is, at this point in time, not known whehter or not the programme was also used in foreign nations. The application could recognise political information due to an advanced bot that ordered certain content, and then processed which people liked certain types of news messages. The users whose information was gathered, were not informed about this, nor could they object to being part of the analysis. With the gathered information, advertisements were sent to various groups marked as "people of interest". There have also been recorded several attempts to spread false news articles on the platform, but it is said that these had limited success.

When we confronted Oxbridge Analytics with our findings, they stressed that we should not publish the story before they had the time to do a "full inquiry" into the matter. However, it has now been well over a year since that promise was made but the CEO of the company, Michael MacWilson, has yet to launch the internal investigation. Given the possibility that Interceptor has considerably influenced the outcome of the latest General Elections, this story does not deserve to end here. Mister MacWilson confirmed to Westminster Times that since we talked to him over our look into the project, it has been "put on hold indefinitely".

Oxbridge Analytics has been linked - through a long chain of corporations - to the former political party of ex-PM Pankhurst: the Social Republican Front (SRF). Miss Pankhurst did not respond to our allegations, saying that she was "unaware of the project and had no involvement in it". The party chair of the Republican Progressive Alliance (RPA, the successor to SRF) did not want to comment officially yet.

The Lord High Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, The Rt. Hon. Sir Mark Pembroke MP (Orange-Bourgognian Union, OBU), said that he will discuss the matter with the Electoral Commission at once, and that he will also availe himself to a parliamentary debate later this week. In writing, he demanded that Michael MacWilson explained the situation at the earliest opportunity and took "whatever steps necessary to shut this programme down at once". If Parliament is not satisfied with the answers provided to them, they have the option to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the matter. During such a procedure, witnesses will be ordered to face a committee and give testimony under oath. If witnesses do not seek to co-operate, they can be found guilty of contempt of parliament, which could ultimately result in a situation in which they are taken hostage for a maximum of five years by the Serjeant-at-Arms of the Lower House.

Facebook's CEO, Elliot Zuckermann, said that he was "aware of the developing story" and would look into the matter shortly. We will publish more about this story in the near future.

This article was written by Erik Groothuizen, Senior Editor for Westminster Times.