Wylie, Christopher, Mindf#ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America, (2019)
Reviewed by Dr. Jay Bushnell, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
During June 2018, Christopher Wylie met a scheduled joint meeting of Congress in the Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) to blow the whistle on the nefarious Cambridge Analytica (CA), a company that he helped create. It is worth noting that no Republican showed up for the meeting perhaps because the party already had firsthand knowledge. Many alt-right, as Wylie called them, frequented the CA facility. He proceeded to outline how Steve Bannon and billionaire, Robert Mercer were using CA to manipulate the U.S. and Brexit into their own image. Facebook, Russia, Wikileaks and the Trump campaign were all involved in the weaponization of data. Moreover, he answered, yes, to the question as to whether he thought CA helped get Trump elected.
What makes it possible to weaponize data is the predictability of humans? We live within structured belief systems of our own making. Anthropologist, sociologist and psychologist all map out these systems as a part of their scientific studies. But, moral parameters guide their work. There is none with CA. When Wylie realized that the methods being developed would destroy democratic systems, he became a whistle blower.
Now here is a brief description of how it works. Drawing on huge data bases containing millions of people from sources like Facebook, individuals who share a particular view of the world based on their thumbs up (like) responses become clustered for targeting. Wylie stressed with these responses “… we could not only predict certain behaviors but also shift attitudes by framing the language of messages to correspond to psychometric profiles.” They would target folks with strong views on say anti big government, abortion, gun control, you get the idea. They could also target clusters of individuals who might be extremely self-centered (narcissistic), ruthlessly self interested (Machiavellianism), or emotionally detached (psychopath). Characterized as individuals from this ‘dark triad’ would be feed misinformation to the point they would get so angry that they were no longer capable of rational thought. What would set these folks off was field tested, so they knew exactly what messages worked. The method was tested in Trinidad and Nigeria and then finally applied to the United States and England.
As if that was not enough, CA even created fake Facebook pages that would attract self-identified participants. Facebook was and is complacent about any of this as recent Congressional event suggest. In a democracy, at least the one that has been developed and evolved in the United States, it has been expected that participants are able to freely participate in the narrative. If truth is replaced by a manipulative alternate narrative, we no longer have free competitive exchange of ideas.
This is a form of voter suppression. In a democracy, governing should be in the hands of individuals who think for themselves. It should not be defined by individuals in a foreign county or anyone who has the wealth, or with a system that manipulates truth. It is also important to note the ones privacy is at stake. They know who each data point is. All that “free” computer time equals a clear profile of you as an individual. They record who you are, where you are, what you do, what you buy and everyone in your network. Social media systems also connect you to an entire community of folks. This could be good but nregulated, these systems are ripe for abuse.
