This is a documentary on how a small company had found out how it could "Hack" the democratic process of the Western world using data. The idea was to identify the voters on the border fence who had not made up their minds, then bombard them with specifically targeted advertisements that had already been mean tested and proven to change the minds of the test sample to produce the required result.
 |
| Ms Britteny Kaiser |
At the beginning of the film, a woman whom we later know to be Miss Brittany Kaiser was at what looked like a Parliamentary Inquiry, answering questions. They were asking about her morals after working as an intern for Obama, Amnesty International, various Human Rights Organisations, Ministry of Agriculture and later for Cambridge Analytical, which were responsible for Brexit and Trump's victory later, it seems. She indicated while working for the Obama campaign and the Human Rights Organisations, they paid her very little money and at times nothing at all. Her parents were going through financial difficulty and felt she could help them despite sending her to school and spending on her education. Then she had a change her heart "moved to the dark side" and started working for Far-Right Organisations and Cambridge Analytical.
Professor David Carroll, a lecturer in digital media and apps development, was concerned that all the information on Social Media was being mined into a trillion-dollar-a-year industry. As human beings, we are now the commodity, and because we enjoyed it so much and had so much access, nobody read the terms and conditions or the fine print. So all our activity on the web, our location, the sites we visit, our likes, the time we spend, etc., is collected in real-time and attached to our online psychological profile and can be bought and sold. These can be used with the right tools to predict us to a high degree of certainty.
Project Alamo (Trump's Election Campaign) spent about one million dollars a day on Facebook ads only. This was run by Cambridge Analytical, which knew what state to target. Alexander Nix, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytical, claimed to have 5,000 data points on every American voter. They were able to classify these individuals into personalities and predict their actions or desires, or worse, what would influence how to vote. But before that, Alexander was a former director of Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), which modified behaviour and worked for the ministry of defence in Afghanistan. They modified people's behaviour using leaflets, television programs, research, etc. The defence ministry classified the work as a weapon, and it was a crime to use it in some countries. It is a story of how it was used in Trinidad and Tobago. There were two parties on the Islands. One majority African heritage and the other majority Indian heritage. Their research shows that the youths contributed to the majority of the vote. Hence, they started a "Do So" program as the slogan. This movement was supposed to reject the current political parties and ensure people would not precipitate in the elections. It was successful, and many youths refused to vote in the elections. The majority-black youths did not vote, but the Indian heritage Youths did what their parents told them to do - vote, and the Prime Minister of Indian heritage, Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar, won in 2010.
The Obama team used the internet very successfully, which opened the door for the Republicans to try their hands on it. Ted Cruz was a nobody in the Republican primaries, but by the use of Cambridge, Analytical became a powerful contender in Iowa. They could use the information mined for the Cruz team and hand it over to the Trump team. Steve Barron is a Vice President of Cambridge Analytical, and he follows the Breitbart doctrine, according to Christoper Wiley, who is a former employee and whistleblower. Mr Wiley said Cambridge Analytica is not a software company but a full-service propaganda machine. Breitbart doctrine Mr Wiley continued is "that if you want to fundamentally change society, you first have to break it", and Steve Barron was using it to start his culture war.
 |
| Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytical |
Miss Kaiser explained further that using data analysis, they could identify the people who were undecided voters. They did not waste time on the core Republican or Democrat votes, but these undecided voters were known as "persuadables ". With analysis, they identified that they could win the election by changing the minds of these persuadables in specific precincts in particular swing states. They identified 70,000 persuadables, and these were identified in specific precincts across Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida. They bombarded them with personal targeted blogs, websites, ads, videos, etc., that had unique content to trigger these individuals. They ensured that they would see the world the way they wanted it. And this will be invisible to the rest of us, but it was based on emotions of Fear and Hatred. In short, 70,000 people in 3 states decided the President of the US in the 2016 election.
Comments
Post a Comment