Remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal of the 2016 US presidential election as well as Britain's Brexit referendum with its nebulous web of connections to Russian Intelligence, Facebook, the Mercers, Steve Bannon, Brad Parscale and the Trump campaign in the international-scale data mining and microtargeting of voters? They’re Back! The company name may have changed but their game is the same and with many of the same players ready to influence the coming year’s presidential election.
Though many of us now know that personal data mining was undertaken by Big Data and used to ill effect in the last election, probably a lot more are unsure exactly how bad it was while even more are sure that they weren’t targeted or even could be influenced. Ahead of the new election season, Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, has a new book out, Mindf*ck : Cambridge Analytica And The Plot To Break America, to enlighten people as to what happened to them online then and continues to happen today in order to help them understand the forces at work to influence their minds and to install authoritarian governments.
In the following video clip (9.22 min), he speaks with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about his new book in telling how data mining, psychographic profiling (via Facebook games) and microtargeting work and where they cross paths with international political players.
In another interview clip (6.23 min) on CNBC, Wylie discusses personal and national security aspects and protections. The takeaway — instead of allowing private companies to set the rules and/or police themselves and inviting toothless and/or political hack-headed agencies such as FTC and FCC to inform them, Congress should do so itself with regulations that protect the privacy and private data of citizens. Additionally, instead of a Space Force, our military should be funding and engaging a Cyberspace Force to guard against cyber intrusions that pose a threat not only to populations and infrastructure but also in cyberwarfare attacks on democratic institutions through online recruitment of potential terrorists, weaponization of data (such as in falsifying information, creating propaganda and manipulating individuals) and election hacking.
Other video recommendations :
Facebooks Cambridge Analytica data scandal explained
Cambridge Analytica: Undercover Secrets of Trump’s Data Firm
Trailer for Netflix film “The Great Hack”
Be informed. But also, be wary.
Friday, Oct 11, 2019 · 3:15:15 AM +00:00
·
polliwonk
This is the initial interview of whistleblower Christopher Wylie with British journalist Carole Cadwallader who broke the story of CA and its efforts to influence elections on both sides of the pond. In this interview, Wylie describes the origins of CA, meeting (and fooling) Steve Bannon and the Mercers, the underpinnings of psychographic profiling. He tells how Bannon turned their research upside down to foster his own purposes to manipulate populations and create a culture war. (13:04 min)