Cambridge Analytica

[luzribeiro]

Cambridge Analytica, Trump-Tied Political Firm, Offered to Entrap Politicians

WASHINGTON — Sitting in a hotel bar, Alexander Nix, who runs the political data firm Cambridge Analytica, had a few ideas for a prospective client looking for help in a foreign election. The firm could send an attractive woman to seduce a rival candidate and secretly videotape the encounter, Mr. Nix said, or send someone posing as a wealthy land developer to pass a bribe.

“We have a long history of working behind the scenes,” Mr. Nix said.

The prospective client, though, was actually a reporter from Channel 4 News in Britain, and the encounter was secretly filmed as part of a monthslong investigation into Cambridge Analytica, the data firm with ties to President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The results of Channel 4’s work were broadcast in Britain on Monday, days after reports in The New York Times and The Observer of London that the firm had harvested the data from more than 50 million Facebook profiles in its bid to develop techniques for predicting the behavior of individual American voters.

The weekend’s reports about the data misuse have prompted calls from lawmakers in Britain and the United States for renewed scrutiny of Facebook, and at least two American state prosecutors have said they are looking into the misuse of data by Cambridge Analytica.

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This is pretty big news. Steve Bannon was a Vice President, Board Member, and alleged co-founder of this company. The company bragged that it altered more than 200 elections globally, using means such as bribery and prostitution to extort politicians. Additionally, this firm met with one of the largest companies in Russia, Lukoil. Lukoil is on the US sanctions list, and has been used "as a vehicle of government influence" which is common for large companies in Russia. A whistleblower for Cambridge Analytica claimed that they started teasing what became Trump's slogans as far back as 2014. The head of the firm admitted he contacted Julian Assange to enlist the help of Wikileaks regarding Hillary Clinton's emails.

We know that Flynn allegedly attempted to obtain the Clinton emails as well. We also know that Roger Stone was in touch with Wikileaks during the campaign. It'll be interesting to see if/how CA helped in these matters, but they're clearly tied up in this more so than the Trump campaign claimed

Personally, I am not surprised. Both sides seemed off the rails in the last election with their actions during the election. By next election, this should all be commonplace.

Comments

[kiaa]

What I'd like to know is how they did it because if it was just normal data mining any firm can do it.

[airiefairie]

Now Zuckerberg is apologising and saying it was very "unfortunate" that Facebook was used for stealing personal data...

Except, that won't do. Facebook is designed to collect people's data and sell it to advertisers. He cannot expect that the data would always find its way into the "right" hands.

[jazzyjj]

In yesterday's edition of a technology newsletter to which I've been subscribed ever since it debuted in 2004, there's an item about deleting one's Fb account. I've been debating whether to do this due to screen reader issues with the service. These issues are being resolved, albeit sporadically. But in addition, this whole privacy issue is just a bit creepy. I also found a link in yesterday's issue of the afore-mentioned newsletter where one can supposedly download all the personal content that Facebook shares. This download takes a few hours though according to what I read, and involves numerous steps which might be rather complicated depending on skill level.

[johnny9fingers]

In some respects they were just better at it than the liberal or left-wing equivalents. But I suppose CA crossed so many lines it's almost funny excepting it is quite scary.

The thing is it isn't against the law of another power for it to subvert a candidate. That's what polities do, after all; in ways varying from subtle and nuanced, to honeytraps, bribery, illegal funding, etc. Some forms are acceptable, some not. [edit] But it is against the law of the candidate's country for the candidate to collude with another power. [edit end.]


Of course the civilised nations move the goalposts with every new "Firmware Update", if you will excuse the use of a modern comparison, which leaves some chaps appearing a bit unfashionably brutal. But then again, they are.

The thing is there are agendas [sic] in the West too, and an overarching one dealing with maximising freedom and contentment, which are mutually exclusive qualities one would have thought. It appears ideological but is in fact entirely pragmatic. And maybe not just from a Benthamite perspective.