Tag: Cambridge Analytica

Trump campaign hires alum of controversial data company

Cambridge Analytica was called out by Facebook for misuse of user data and shuttered in 2018.

President Donald Trump’s campaign is bringing on an alum of the controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica, a move likely to raise alarms among Trump critics and data privacy advocates who worry the president will push the technological envelope to get reelected in 2020.

Matt Oczkowski, who served as head of product at Cambridge before it went bankrupt and shut down in 2018, is helping oversee the Trump campaign’s data program, according to two people familiar with the hire. Cambridge gained notoriety for its work on psychological voter profiling and because it allegedly improperly obtained the personal information of tens of millions of Facebook users.

Oczkowski, who also worked on Trump’s 2016 effort, joined the reelection campaign in January, and payments to his company, HuMn Behavior, are expected to show up on Trump’s next campaign finance disclosure later this month. Continue reading.

‘The Capabilities Are Still There.’ Why Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Christopher Wylie Is Still Worried

In March 2018, Christopher Wylie blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that worked for the Trump campaign. Cambridge Analytica, the Canadian data scientist revealed, had illegally obtained the Facebook information of 87 million people and used it to build psychological profiles of voters. Using cutting-edge research, Cambridge Analytica — which was funded by the billionaire hedge-fund owner Robert Mercer, and effectively run by Steve Bannon from 2014 onward — spread narratives on social media aiming to ignite a culture war, suppress black voter turnout and exacerbate racist views held by some white voters. (Trump’s campaign staff have denied Cambridge Analytica played a major role in the campaign.)

Wylie’s revelations caused a temporary meltdown in Facebook’s market value and set governments around the world scrambling to more stringently regulate social media, data collection and political campaigning. But, 18 months later and as another U.S. Presidential Election approaches, Wylie says not enough has been done to prevent similar problems. In his new book, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America, out Oct. 8, Wylie tells the story of his experience coming to realize how the enormous amount of data we now share about ourselves daily on social media could be combined, synthesized and eventually weaponized to shape our thoughts, feelings and even voting habits — all without us noticing.

Wylie spoke to TIME about the dangers of Facebook, his fears for 2020 and his best advice for would-be whistleblowers.

View the complete October 8 article by Billy Perrigo on The Time website here.

Brittany Kaiser’s work with Cambridge Analytica helped elect Donald Trump. She’s hoping the world will forgive her.

Washington Post logoShe’d like to be remembered as a whistleblower and a human rights advocate. You decide.

Brittany Kaiser first emerged in last year’s Cambridge Analytica scandal as a seemingly nefarious figure, an insider steeped in the dark secrets of a new kind of voter manipulation powered by Facebook data. To make matters worse, news reports also raised questions about Kaiser’s mysterious dealings with WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange at a time when he remained holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London.

For Kaiser — at the time a 30-year-old Democrat from Texas who’d become business development director for Cambridge Analytica, a firm created to elect Republicans — the massive wave of critical news reports about the company threatened to deliver catastrophic damage to her reputation and even made her fear possible arrest.

So she did something drastic: Kaiser fled to Thailand, and she let a crew of filmmakers tag along.

View the complete August 2 article by Craig Timberg and Rosalind Helderman on The Washington Post website here.

Mueller subpoenas director of controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica in Russia probe

Brittany Kaiser, a director of data company Cambridge Analytica, has been subpoenaed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, the Guardian reports.

A spokesman for Kaiser confirmed she is fully cooperating with Mueller, according to the Guardian, and that she is working with separate “US congressional and legal investigations into the company’s activities.”

Kaiser is the second person from Cambridge Analytica who has been subpoenaed by Mueller. As the Guardian notes:

View the complete February 17 article by Elizabeth Preza on the AlterNet website here.

Trump team secretly working with same shady data thieves to rig 2020

The following article by Oliver Willis was posted on the Shareblue.com website June 15, 2018:

Former operatives from Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm Trump used to suppress votes and run racist ads, are secretly working with his re-election campaign.

Credit: AP/Evan Vucci

Operatives from Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm at the center of an international scandal, are secretly working with Trump’s re-election campaign.

The Associated Press reports that at least four former Cambridge Analatica employees are working with a new firm, Data Propria. Continue reading “Trump team secretly working with same shady data thieves to rig 2020”

Christopher Wylie warns Congress of “resegregation of society that’s catalyzed by algorithms”

The following by Melissa Ryan was posted on the Media Matters website May 17, 2018:

Mr. Wylie goes to Washington to help America better understand what we’re facing from social media

Christopher Wylie testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 16, warning of “resegregation of society that’s catalyzed by algorithms” and speaking at length about how Cambridge Analytica exploited Americans on Facebook.

Wylie, the whistleblower who helped expose Cambridge Analytica’s exploitation of 87 million Facebook users’ data, had met privately with House Democrats last month but the Republican majority refused to allow an open hearing. He has testified before Parliament in the U.K., but yesterday’s hearing was Wylie’s first public appearance in the U.S. He spoke about Cambridge Analytica’s U.S. election work, the systemic failures of tech companies that led to the data breach, and what the future holds if said failures remain unaddressed. Wylie emphasized that Americans are simply unable to opt out of using the internet and that regulation is the only protection available. Senators on the committee asked Wylie about some of Cambridge Analytica’s practices that will likely be adopted by other entities, such as voter suppression ads and predictive algorithms. Continue reading “Christopher Wylie warns Congress of “resegregation of society that’s catalyzed by algorithms””

Whistleblower: Bannon led Trump data firm’s voter suppression scheme

The following article by Caroline Orr was posted on the ShareBlue website April 26, 2018:

In explosive testimony this week, a Cambridge Analytica whistleblower described how Steve Bannon turned the data firm into a ‘full service propaganda machine’ for the Trump campaign.

AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu

Former Trump campaign CEO and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon directed Cambridge Analytica — the scandal-plagued data firm hired by the Trump campaign — to research voter suppression tactics to discourage Democrats from voting in the 2016 presidential election, according to whistleblower Christopher Wylie.

Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, told Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week that Bannon ordered the data firm to explore methods for “discouraging particular types of voters who are more prone to voting for Democratic or liberal candidates.” Continue reading “Whistleblower: Bannon led Trump data firm’s voter suppression scheme”

Cambridge Analytica Had Exclusive Rights to Breitbart Data, Says Ex-Director

The following article was posted on the Daily Beast website April 18, 2018:

Credit: Bill O’Leary, The Washington Post

A former Cambridge Analytica director has claimed that the company had exclusive access to Breitbart’s engagement data. Breitbart, the far-right news outlet formerly run by top Trump adviser Steve Bannon, allegedly gave exclusive access to Cambridge Analytica to resell data about what its users were reading. Brittany Kaiser, former director of program development at Cambridge Analytica, gave evidence to a British parliament committee about the arrangement during a hearing Tuesday. In her written statement, Kaiser revealed: “One of Cambridge Analytica’s competitive advantages in the U.S. marketplace in 2016, and a key part of our pitch to Republican clients, was that we had secured exclusive rights to resell Breitbart engagement data. This meant that we had at least some access to what tens of millions of Americans were reading on Breitbart, and could feed this data into our campaign models to help predict resonant issues—and to influence behavior. Breitbart became one of the biggest media platforms in the U.S. in 2016, and its stories often went viral on Facebook.”

READ IT AT THE GUARDIAN

Former Cambridge Analytica workers say firm sent foreigners to advise U.S. campaigns

The following article by Craig Timberg and Tom Hamburger was posted on the Washington Post website March 25, 2018:

Cambridge Analytica, a firm that ran data operations for President Trump’s 2016 campaign, was banned from Facebook on March 16. Here’s what you need to know. (Elyse Samuels, Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

LONDON — Cambridge Analytica assigned dozens of non-U.S. citizens to provide campaign strategy and messaging advice to ­Republican candidates in 2014, according to three former workers for the data firm, even as an attorney warned executives to abide by U.S. laws limiting foreign involvement in elections.

The assignments came amid efforts to present the newly created company as “an American brand” that would appeal to U.S. political clients even though its parent, SCL Group, was based in London, according to former Cambridge Analytica research director Christopher Wylie. Continue reading “Former Cambridge Analytica workers say firm sent foreigners to advise U.S. campaigns”

The scary truth that Cambridge Analytica understands

The following article by Ishaan Tharoor was posted on the Washington Post website March 22, 2018:

Cambridge Analytica, a firm that ran data operations for President Trump’s 2016 campaign, was banned from Facebook on March 16. Here’s what you need to know. (Elyse Samuels, Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

Cambridge Analytica, a London-based data firm that sold its services to political campaigns, has been thrust into the spotlight this week thanks to a number of startling exposés. Undercover footage, along with testimony and evidence provided by a former employee-turned-whistleblower, offered a glimpse of the company’s shadowy dealings around the world. It secretly harvested the data of tens of millions of Facebook users and may have engaged in all sorts of offline skulduggery, including bribes and sexual blackmail, to help clients win elections. Continue reading “The scary truth that Cambridge Analytica understands”