https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/m ... s-election
Working with two whistleblowers who helped set up Cambridge Analytica, the Observer and Guardian have spent a year analysing documents, gathering eyewitness reports and working with whistleblowers to untangle a highly complex story of elections in the digital age. In this series we expose:
1) How data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica used people’s Facebook data for political campaigning.
Read more from this series
2) How Cambridge Analytica is connected to AggregateIQ — the digital agency used by the Vote Leave official campaign for Brexit.
3) Questions arising around how the Vote Leave campaign operated in the run up to the referendum.
Cambridge Analytica is currently being investigated on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a key subject in two inquiries in the UK — by the Electoral Commission, into the firm's possible role in the EU referendum and the Information Commissioner's Office, into data analytics for political purposes — and one in the US, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Trump-Russia collusion.
It's pretty fascinating. The Guardian has run many articles in the last while. You can find them here:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/cambridge-analytica
There are many, many angles and implications. Even net neutrality is in the mix https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-has-come
In the US, removing regulations from ISPs was described as 'creating an equal playing field' between regulated ISPs and unregulated services such as Facebook. Rather than pondering if it would be a swell idea to level the playing field to the benefit of end-users by exploring regulations for the likes of Google and Facebook, the US - led by Ajit Pai of the FCC - decided that deregulation of the ISPs is super-duper.
In a world where the astoundingly massive Equifax data-breach exposed the vast amount of data they collect on everyone, yet lasts in the news for maybe a couple of weeks, it will be interesting to see how much staying power the various threads of this story will have. I suspect it will continue to gain attention since Facebook, and the data they collect, is more apparent than what data brokers like Equifax collect. Also, last I checked, Equifax data wasn't used to try to manipulate elections, so, erm, yay Equifax?
Here is Bruce Schneier nailing it on Equifax: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/ ... equif.html
Of course, Cambridge Analytica didn't stop at data mining.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... -elections
There are also ties to Russia, because of course there are.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/m ... university
Aleksandr Kogan, the Cambridge University academic who orchestrated the harvesting of Facebook data, had previously unreported ties to a Russian university, including a teaching position and grants for research into the social media network, the Observer has discovered. Cambridge Analytica, the data firm he worked with – which funded the project to turn tens of millions of Facebook profiles into a unique political weapon – also attracted interest from a key Russian firm with links to the Kremlin.
Energy firm Lukoil, which is now on the US sanctions list and has been used as a vehicle of government influence, saw a presentation on the firm’s work in 2014. It began with a focus on voter suppression in Nigeria, and Cambridge Analytica also discussed “micro-targeting” individuals on social media during elections.
This will all take quite some time to unpack. It hits elections in Africa, Brexit, and of course, the 2016 US presidential election. You've got the billionaire Mercer funding things, Facebook taking a lot of heat, and all sorts of shenanigans.
Hell, Alexandr Cogan, noted the Guardian, even did this:
Dr Kogan – who later changed his name to Dr Spectre, but has subsequently changed it back to Dr Kogan
C'mon, Alex... like, really, man? Good gracious.
Anyhow, enjoy!