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Big data, and its abuse, is threatening the very roots of democracy

The Cambridge Analytica Files

‘I created Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower

 

Summary of article:

Chris Wylie, the subject of this Guardian article now turned whistleblower, was, as he puts it himself, “the gay Canadian vegan who somehow ended up creating ‘Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare mindf*ck tool’.

In 2014, Steve Bannon – then executive chairman of the ‘alt-right’ news network Breitbart – was Wylie’s boss. And Robert Mercer, the secretive US hedge-fund billionaire and Republican donor, was Cambridge Analytica’s investor. And the idea they bought into was to bring big data and social media to an established military methodology – ‘information operations’ – then turn it on the US electorate.”

“Millions of people’s personal information was stolen and used to target them in ways they wouldn’t have seen, and couldn’t have known about, by a mercenary outfit, Cambridge Analytica, who, Wylie says, ‘would work for anyone’. Who would pitch to Russian oil companies. Would they subvert elections abroad on behalf of foreign governments?

It occurs to me to ask Wylie this one night.

‘Yes.’

Nato or non-Nato?

‘Either. I mean they’re mercenaries. They’ll work for pretty much anyone who pays.’ “

 

This is a truly frightening article which, I believe, everyone should read.

 

Full article

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