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Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower

I've not been keeping up with all the detail enough to know how much of this is new, but anyway...

Cambridge Analytica files spell out tactics

Documents shared by Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie spell out how parent company SCL Group tried to influence elections worldwide.

One letter also refers to its support of 15 psychological operations involving the UK's Ministry of Defence as of January 2012.

The Foreign Office is quoted as saying another part of SCL was "a joy to work with" on a counter-terror operation.

The files also refer to work done for Ambassador Bolton on US votes.
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In one document, SCL said that encouraging people "not to vote" might be more effective than trying to motivate swing voters.

Describing its work in a Nigerian election, SCL Global said it had advised that "rather than trying to motivate swing voters to vote for our clients, a more effective strategy might be to persuade opposition voters not to vote at all".

It said this had been achieved by "organising anti-election rallies on the day of polling in opposition strongholds" and using "local religious figures to maximise their appeal especially among the spiritual, rural communities".
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It boasted of devising a political graffiti campaign to create a youth "movement" in Trinidad and Tobago and of disseminating "campaign messages that, whilst ostensibly coming the youth, were unattributable to any specific party". It said as a result "a united youth movement was created".
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elbows said:
I've not been keeping up with all the detail enough to know how much of this is new, but anyway...

Cambridge Analytica files spell out tactics
Click to expand...

The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee which took evidence from Wiley has put a pdf on it's website containing 122 pages of the documentation he gave them

Background papers submitted by Christopher Wylie (PDF ) - parliament.uk

It contains a glossy brochure produced for SCL by AIQ setting out in detail its 'offering' in America in 2014, some of the contracts and service level agreements between SCL and its partner companies, a copy of the legal memorandum sent to Nix, Bannon and Rebekah Mercer in 2014 warning them about the involvement of foreign nationals in American electioneering (pp. 88-97), the MoD letter confirming SCL's role in training and access to classified information (p. 114) and two SCL documents intended for prospective clients setting out case studies of it's activities in various countries and how utterly wonderful the results had been (pp 115-122).

Separately a Guardian story challenging the 'nothing to see here' bollocks about how Facebook only hoovered up phone data if people were stupid enough to 'consent' to it.

Facebook logged SMS texts and phone calls without explicitly notifying users - The Guardian
 
Oh ha ha not, how very drole I thought when reading the following, until I got to the bit related to this subject of this thread, which I actually found funny.

DZb_vNHXkAApGRa.png
 
Liam O'Hare on Cambridge Analytica -
"The story has lifted a veil on a World Wide Web of deceit , deception and election rigging that leads to the very heart of the British establishment...."
 
A bit of leaking from within:

Facebook Executive In 2016: “Maybe Someone Dies In A Terrorist Attack Coordinated On Our Tools”

The short version of it is: the ends justify the means.

I found the most disturbing part the "The work we will likely have to do in China some day," line. It's not explicit, but it sounds like the writer is saying that they have to get into that market, and in order to do it they're going to have to make some sort of deal with the Communist Party, and they're fine with that.

The writer's defence of what he wrote is that he didn't agree with what he wrote, he was just raising issues...

I believe there are a lot of Randians in Silicon Valley. . .
 
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The fallout from the Facebook data 'revelations' is causing ripples elsewhere. When the story of SCL's activities in Trinidad and Tobago first broke in the Guardian last May no less than two former National Security Ministers, one of them that well known local 'footie lad' Jack Warner, denied any knowledge of it.

On Wednesday the current Attorney General announced that
his office will undertake a full audit of all government ministries, statutory authorities, state enterprises and the National Security Council to ascertain whether any contracts were established, whether any payments were made and whether any services were rendered by the named companies, Cambridge Analytica, AggregateIQ, and the Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) Group, and/or any of their affiliate/alter ego companies/entities
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with a view to establishing whether the law had been broken.

Hunt on for Cambridge Analytica evidence as Gov't announces audits - Loop News

It probably helps that the United National Congress, the governing party that SCL were allegedly working for, lost the subsequent election and are currently in opposition. On Monday it's current leader described the allegations as 'fake news'.
 
StigoftheDig said:
I can't reference anything better than a "tweet I saw somewhere yesterday", but it's quite big news in India too apparently.
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It's certainly being reported for example :

Cambridge Analytica did caste census for a party before 2012 UP polls: Christopher Wylie - Times of India (warning - annoying pop-overs and overlays)

which contains some detail I don't think I've seen elsewhere. (And sister financial paper the Economic Times has pointed out that Alexander Nix had a framed Congress Party poster in his London office). However the work was regional rather than national as I understand it, and for more than one party.
 
The written transcript of the session at which Wylie gave evidence is now up on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee website.

HTML version and PDF.
 
This is interesting, or at least I think so.
... this isn’t because there’s some kind of conspiracy revolving around a group of ex-spooks. It’s about the fact that power comes from networks of people, and the wing of the British ruling class which was in and around the military is moving rapidly into the world of privatised war. And those people have a strong ideological and material interest in radical right politics.
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Cambridge Analytica is what happens when you privatise military propaganda
 
Mr Zuckerberg is going to testify to the House Energy and Commerce Committee next Wednesday.

Carole Cadwalladr has got involved in a Twitter spat with Andrew Neil, who has been rather obviously trying to rubbish the story on the basis of a legal note on a Guardian story, and has been stooping to quoting Guido Fawkes.

Nigel Farage has posted an odd tweet showing a photograph of himself with a thumb drive and carrying a folder that says "person of interest". That's a bit weird, but an obvious reference to the rumour that he is the famed "go between" who delivered Hilary Clinton's hacked emails to Julian Assange, and, that he is reportedly a "person of interest" to the Mueller enquiry in the States (this isn't the same as being a "suspect", just that they want to talk to him). Odd timing from him, as Carole Cadwalladr, who he's tagged in the Tweet, says she hasn't written about those rumours, but a couple of other people have pre-emptively denied her stories (Cummings with his "outing" blog, and Gove by leaking a letter to Guido Fawkes) when they've been sent questions, so perhaps he will feature soon.

So maybe there is more to come. . .
 
Washington Post now reporting that really it's pretty much everyone who used the site, but not by Cambridge Analytica, by lots of app developers, and not to the same degree as by CA in all cases.
 
I'm not sure what that means in practical terms.

I suspect it's not a great deal given that a lot of this story is that the social media/data-wrangling world lives sort of outside attempts to regulate it. Not to say that that's a tech-dependent thing when coming to a settlement on regulating the press was such a mess.
 
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