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[jelly]

This is one meaty article, tin foil hat of industrial scale needed.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

In June 2013, a young American postgraduate called Sophie was passing through London when she called up the boss of a firm where she’d previously interned. The company, SCL Elections, went on to be bought by Robert Mercer, a secretive hedge fund billionaire, renamed Cambridge Analytica, and achieved a certain notoriety as the data analytics firm that played a role in both Trump and Brexit campaigns. But all of this was still to come. London in 2013 was still basking in the afterglow of the Olympics. Britain had not yet Brexited. The world had not yet turned.

“That was before we became this dark, dystopian data company that gave the world Trump,” a former Cambridge Analytica employee who I’ll call Paul tells me. “It was back when we were still just a psychological warfare firm.”

Was that really what you called it, I ask him. Psychological warfare? “Totally. That’s what it is. Psyops. Psychological operations – the same methods the military use to effect mass sentiment change. It’s what they mean by winning ‘hearts and minds’. We were just doing it to win elections in the kind of developing countries that don’t have many rules.”

On that day in June 2013, Sophie met up with SCL’s chief executive, Alexander Nix, and gave him the germ of an idea. “She said, ‘You really need to get into data.’ She really drummed it home to Alexander. And she suggested he meet this firm that belonged to someone she knew about through her father.”

Who’s her father?

“Eric Schmidt.”

Eric Schmidt – the chairman of Google?

“Yes. And she suggested Alexander should meet this company called Palantir.”

I had been speaking to former employees of Cambridge Analytica for months and heard dozens of hair-raising stories, but it was still a gobsmacking moment. To anyone concerned about surveillance, Palantir is practically now a trigger word. The data-mining firm has contracts with governments all over the world – including GCHQ and the NSA. It’s owned by Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of eBay and PayPal, who became Silicon Valley’s first vocal supporter of Trump.

In some ways, Eric Schmidt’s daughter showing up to make an introduction to Palantir is just another weird detail in the weirdest story I have ever researched.

Tamsin Shaw, an associate professor of philosophy at New York University, helps me understand the context. She has researched the US military’s funding and use of psychological research for use in torture. “The capacity for this science to be used to manipulate emotions is very well established. This is military-funded technology that has been harnessed by a global plutocracy and is being used to sway elections in ways that people can’t even see, don’t even realise is happening to them,” she says. “It’s about exploiting existing phenomenon like nationalism and then using it to manipulate people at the margins. To have so much data in the hands of a bunch of international plutocrats to do with it what they will is absolutely chilling.

“We are in an information war and billionaires are buying up these companies, which are then employed to go to work in the heart of government. That’s a very worrying situation.”

The Electoral Commission has written to AggregateIQ. A source close to the investigation said that AggregateIQ responded by saying it had signed a non-disclosure agreement. And since it was outside British jurisdiction, that was the end of it. Vote Leave refers to this as the Electoral Commission giving it “a clean bill of health”.

On his blog, Dominic Cummings has written thousands of words about the referendum campaign. What is missing is any details about his data scientists. He “hired physicists” is all he’ll say. In the books on Brexit, other members of the team talk about “Dom’s astrophysicists”, who he kept “a tightly guarded secret”. They built models, using data “scraped” off Facebook.

And to finally answer the question about how Vote Leave found this obscure Canadian company on the other side of the planet, he wrote: “Someone found AIQ [AggregateIQ] on the internet and interviewed them on the phone then told me – let’s go with these guys. They were clearly more competent than any others we’d spoken to in London.”

The most unfortunate aspect of this – for Dominic Cummings – is that this isn’t credible. It’s the work of moments to put a date filter on Google search and discover that in late 2015 or early 2016, there are no Google hits for “Aggregate IQ”. There is no press coverage. No random mentions. It doesn’t even throw up its website. I have caught Dominic Cummings in what appears to be an alternative fact.

 

[liquidtmd]

The Electoral Commission has written to AggregateIQ. A source close to the investigation said that AggregateIQ responded by saying it had signed a non-disclosure agreement. And since it was outside British jurisdiction, that was the end of it. Vote Leave refers to this as the Electoral Commission giving it “a clean bill of health”.

Fucking L.O.L

 

[Lonewulfeus]

The world is broken and we need a reset button.

 

[Fat4all]

they hid my car keys

 

[CO_Andy]

the La Li Lu Le Lo?!

 

[KDR_11k]

The world is broken and we need a reset button.

Resets tend to mean breakdowns of society and a few centuries of despotism and murder until a more stable society forms. I'd rather try incremental improvements.

 

[Deleted member 80556]

Was that really what you called it, I ask him. Psychological warfare? “Totally. That’s what it is. Psyops. Psychological operations – the same methods the military use to effect mass sentiment change. It’s what they mean by winning ‘hearts and minds’. We were just doing it to win elections in the kind of developing countries that don’t have many rules.”

And I thought that the Bell thing in Watch Dogs that subconsciously changed people's minds was crazy. Holy crap.

Thanks for the link, I'm definitely reading this.

 

[Jams775]

Resets tend to mean breakdowns of society and a few centuries of despotism and murder until a more stable society forms. I'd rather try incremental improvements.

Oh so you're saying somebody already hit reset?

 

[SpinningBirdKick]

Thanks for posting this, I'll read it later.

Another great article on Cambridge Analytica's involvement in Brexit and Trump's campaign was posted a while ago here: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win

They trained machine learning models using 'Likes' information scraped from Facebook and then tirelessly A/B tested different campaign messages that would be the most effective to get people in their target groups to rally to their cause.

The strength of their modeling was illustrated by how well it could predict a subject's answers. Kosinski continued to work on the models incessantly: before long, he was able to evaluate a person better than the average work colleague, merely on the basis of ten Facebook "likes." Seventy "likes" were enough to outdo what a person's friends knew, 150 what their parents knew, and 300 "likes" what their partner knew. More "likes" could even surpass what a person thought they knew about themselves. On the day that Kosinski published these findings, he received two phone calls. The threat of a lawsuit and a job offer. Both from Facebook.

 

[Ziltoidia 9]

The world is broken and we need a reset button.

Resets are usually big big wars, and leaders see that as the trend and it leads them to be OK with having a massive war.

 

[Diablos]

the La Li Lu Le Lo?!

Kojima saw the future

 

[Lonewulfeus]

Oh so you're saying somebody already hit reset?

Yea I feel like we're living through that right now.

 

[Corleth the Fey]

Why hasn't psychological warfare converted us all then? The people who voted for Trump and Brexit already thought the way they did, they just needed someone to okay them to vote that way. IE A racist fuckwit reality TV star to vote for - or an idiot allowing a referendum to prop up his chances of getting re-elected. No billionaire data think tank made those things happen.

 

[sohois]

This isn't the first time the guardian have been banging on about these Cambridge analytics guys. Seems a bit weird to keep writing about them when they are just a better market research firm.

 

[KDR_11k]

Oh so you're saying somebody already hit reset?

The last big reset was World War 2, especially for Europe.

 

[liquidtmd]

Resets are usually big big wars, and leaders see that as the trend and it leads them to be OK with having a massive war.

Equally, there is less money in peace and stability.

Trump and Brexit serve to fundamentally destabilise unified geopolitical relations. It's amazing how broken up things have gotten post two campaigns that were founded on the rhetoric of 'Taking Back Control'. The EU Consumer Protection standards afforded to UK residents and Trumps hell for leather aim to deregulate pretty much all major industry are just two examples of how darkly funny that 'Control' line is when you read the story in the OP

 

[tuxfool]

Why hasn't psychological warfare converted us all then? The people who voted for Trump and Brexit already thought the way they did, they just needed someone to okay them to vote that way. IE A racist fuckwit reality TV star to vote for - or an idiot allowing a referendum to prop up his chances of getting re-elected. No billionaire data think tank made those things happen.

As described by the article, the system doesn't rewrite people's thinking, it just nudges them in certain directions.

 

[Lonewulfeus]

Why hasn't psychological warfare converted us all then? The people who voted for Trump and Brexit already thought the way they did, they just needed someone to okay them to vote that way. IE A racist fuckwit reality TV star to vote for - or an idiot allowing a referendum to prop up his chances of getting re-elected. No billionaire data think tank made those things happen.

Most of the people already converted are low intelligence or subject to extremely poor education(by design of course). What we saw with Brexit and trumps electoral win was weaponized ignorance.

 

[TAJ]

Why hasn't psychological warfare converted us all then? The people who voted for Trump and Brexit already thought the way they did, they just needed someone to okay them to vote that way. IE A racist fuckwit reality TV star to vote for - or an idiot allowing a referendum to prop up his chances of getting re-elected. No billionaire data think tank made those things happen.

If you're using, say, nationalism as a tool to influence someone, then you're only going to get results from people with nationalistic leanings.

 

[Lonewulfeus]

Resets are usually big big wars, and leaders see that as the trend and it leads them to be OK with having a massive war.

Do you really think war will look the same now as it did in 1938?

 

[Fallout-NL]

Why hasn't psychological warfare converted us all then? The people who voted for Trump and Brexit already thought the way they did, they just needed someone to okay them to vote that way. IE A racist fuckwit reality TV star to vote for - or an idiot allowing a referendum to prop up his chances of getting re-elected. No billionaire data think tank made those things happen.

It does allow you to target fuckwits with extreme precision and push them in a certain direction. Which is important considering the slim margins with which these things are often won.

 

[Corleth the Fey]

See the issue I have here is one of blame. And now the little people can blame someone else for their bad decisions.

I was coerced by the big bad billionaire with big data - it's not my fault the world and freedoms that my parents and grandparents fought for have gone to shit. No sir, not me. That my children will inherit a world teetering on the edge of ecological disaster. How could I have known?

 

[PeskyToaster]

The world is broken and we need a reset button.

Lose an election and you're ready to kill everyone? Get a grip

 

[SpinningBirdKick]

Why hasn't psychological warfare converted us all then? The people who voted for Trump and Brexit already thought the way they did, they just needed someone to okay them to vote that way. IE A racist fuckwit reality TV star to vote for - or an idiot allowing a referendum to prop up his chances of getting re-elected. No billionaire data think tank made those things happen.

Ever wondered why Trump says stupid shit that makes no sense? It's because the group focus tests things to hell and back to know what visual/verbal triggers are the most effective for the groups they're trying to rally to their cause.

It's pretty much the same way that email scams often contain lots of spelling mistakes and bad grammar. Because the bad grammar and spelling immediately sets alarm bells ringing for people that you won't easily be able to scam. So all you're left with are a bunch of hand picked idiots that will easily do your bidding without question. Why spend time and resources on people that you will never convince while there are much easier pickings out there?

This is the real power in Cambridge Analytica's approach. Now being able to easily tap into that pool of people that match the profile of your target demographic. Those people that given a few gentle nudges will do your bidding because they're already thinking that way. Not to try and convert someone with the opposite viewpoint to your point of view. That would take too much time and effort and may be impossible. So why bother with that?

 

[Stereogatari]

It's just like something from one of my Japanese anime games!

 

[yanipheonu]

I'm sure there's more than one group out there trying some Patriots shit on people.

Frankly, if I wanted to take over the world, I'd go after a company like Google. There's a scary amount of power to be found.

 

[Spladam]

Bloomberg did a piece on Cambridge Analytica a while back, shady as shit. Wired did an article calling them, wait for it... Shady.

They seem to be less inclined towards high tech data then they do towards good old divide and conquer, use of racial and nationalistic divisions to bring out voters. Sound familiar?

It's also what the imperialistic powers of the 19th and 20th centuries used to subvert and neutralize local native populations, like in India, Pakistan, and North and Central Africa. Some real shit head stuff here.

 

[Lonewulfeus]

Lose an election and you're ready to kill everyone? Get a grip

Lol if you think the mess we're in is something that can be fixed you're delusional, and this has been going on for a while it's just much more obvious under Trump because he and his are too dumb to hide it.

 

[Jams775]

Lol if you think the mess we're in is something that can be fixed you're delusional, and this has been going on for a while it's just much more obvious under Trump because he and his are too dumb to hide it.

Yeah, manipulating people has always occurred. I think the scary part is how laser focused it's become. I don't know how intentional it is (if it's just rich people pushing their agenda through money and networking or a spooky group of evil doers planning our demised in some castle deep underground).

I don't think it can be fixed to be honest. Not without destroying complete ideas we as a society have built up around the pursuit of power (in whatever form it takes). It'd take some bad people doing some impossible retrospective on what they're doing to change anything.

 

[Wilsongt]

Robert Mercer is the right's George Soros

 

[Pinko Marx]

Lose an election and you're ready to kill everyone? Get a grip

Things have been fucked for a while now. Trump is just a giant highlighter on the problem.

 

[Lautaro]

Things have been fucked for a while now. Trump is just a giant highlighter on the problem.

America is not the world. Many countries are doing better than ever.

Don't try to reset the world (whatever that means) just because some americans are now understanding what's struggle.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Things have been fucked for a while now. Trump is just a giant highlighter on the problem.

The world is better today then it was in 99,99% of history actually by any objective measure. Still, could have been better of course and some places go backwards for a bit from time to time.

 

[hateradio]

The world is broken and we need a reset button.

Third Impact never happened

 

[jellies_two]

The people involved will always minimise the impact these things have that's a completely natural reaction to reporters sniffing around - they will say it's limited, experimental, blah blah.

They last thing they want is any wider publicity in case there are calls for better data protection laws and the ability for Facebook to help them gets throttled by legislation from a freaked out population.

So don't buy anyone from CA or Palantir or anybody buying their services saying that it was very limited in use. In fact that should raise more red flags.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Cambridge Analytica is a group of snake oil salesmen that liberals latched onto as a supervillain because they couldn't handle the idea of losing to the obvious stupid people that Trump surrounded himself with.

Cambridge Analytica's models were worse than the RNC's during the general, Cambridge was fired by Cruz during the primary, Cambridge has never used their psychological modeling Facebook stuff in Brexit or the US election.

 

[jellies_two]

Cambridge Analytica's models were worse than the RNC's during the general, Cambridge was fired by Cruz during the primary, Cambridge has never used their psychological modeling Facebook stuff in Brexit or the US election.

Case in poInt.
How do you know any of this for sure, because the customer said so, and so did CA ?

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Case in poInt.
How do you know any of this for sure, because the customer said so, and so did CA ?

Yes, companies often lie about how good they actually are and claim that they were fired because...???

 

[Unknown Soldier]

We Deus Ex Universe now

 

[Chittagong]

Cambridge Analytica is a group of snake oil salesmen that liberals latched onto as a supervillain because they couldn't handle the idea of losing to the obvious stupid people that Trump surrounded himself with.

This.

 

[Pinko Marx]

America is not the world. Many countries are doing better than ever.

Don't try to reset the world (whatever that means) just because some americans are now understanding what's struggle.

Black Americans have understood struggle since we came to America.
I'm not exactly agreeing with the reset notion to be clear, just illustrating that the American election wasn't the catalyst for this train of thought.

 

[low-G]

Lose an election and you're ready to kill everyone? Get a grip

This post just nudged me closer to nuclear war

 

[jstripes]

Yes, companies often lie about how good they actually are and claim that they were fired because...???

Or that's what they want you to think.

 

[jellies_two]

Yes, companies often lie about how good they actually are and claim that they were fired because...???

Their customer is not you. Or the public.
They get their business from political fixers talking. They have Zero interest in pumping what they do to the press and every interest in doing it quietly for as long as possible without any regulatory oversight.
They are operating in a nasty grey area, scraping or using data covered weakly by privacy policies cut and pasted from other tech companies and using this data to influence voters.

The only way to know how successful they are is to follow the money: how much do they get paid and who by. And the US system hides this very effectively now.

 

[br0ken_shad0w]

the La Li Lu Le Lo?!

Existed since the 1950s

 

[IndoAssassin]

I know GAF hates Sam Harris but he recently did a podcast with a design ethicist at Google about how technology is manipulating our minds.

Here's the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPF9_1VIso

It was eye opening and scary how easily tech can persuade our behavior. I recommend putting your hatred aside for just this episode.

 

[Captain Tuttle]

Posting to subscribe

Goddamn I need some time to read and digest this

 

[Ether_Snake]

Maybe people on FB can stop answering the stupid quiz like "Which Walking Dead Character are you?" or "Find out which country most resembles you!".

That being said, "We are able to find more than one's partner knows the more likes they clicked on FB!", well no shit! I doubt your partner knows you might have seen some anime which you liked the page of back in 2010.

Those firms often get flooded with cash initially, and then go bust and are relegated to history. In the 90s firms said they could predict the market's movements thanks to AI, something only now being somewhat more doable.

 

[andythinkpad]

Well that's what America desert so it's all good.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

So, the Illuminati.