> “political correctness” that was preventing them from speaking these “truths” > in public. It was through the process of reading these forums that Bannon > realized he could harness them and their anonymous swarms of resentment and > harassment. > > This was especially true after Gamergate, in the late summer of 2014, right > before Bannon was introduced to SCL. In many ways, Gamergate created a > conceptual framework for Bannon’s alt-right movement, as he knew there was an > undercurrent populated by millions of intense and angry young men. Trolling > and cyberbullying became key tools of the alt-right. But Bannon went deeper > and had Cambridge Analytica scale and deploy many of the same tactics that > domestic abusers and bullies use to erode stress resilience in their victims. > Bannon transformed CA into a tool for automated bullying and scaled > psychological abuse. The firm started this journey by identifying a series of > cognitive biases that it hypothesized would interact with latent racial bias. > Over the course of many experiments, we concocted an arsenal of psychological > tools that could be deployed systematically via social media, blogs, groups, > and forums. > > Bannon’s first request of our team was to study who felt oppressed by > political correctness. Cambridge Analytica found that, because people often > overestimate how much others notice them, spotlighting socially uncomfortable > situations was an effective prime for eliciting bias in target cohorts, such > as when you get in trouble for mispronouncing a foreign-sounding name. One of > the most effective messages the firm tested was getting subjects to “imagine > an America where you can’t pronounce anyone’s name.” Subjects would be shown > a series of uncommon names and then asked, “How hard is it to pronounce this > name? Can you recall a time where people were laughing at someone who messed > up an ethnic name? Do some people use political correctness to make others > feel dumb or to get ahead? ” > > People reacted strongly to the notion that “liberals” were seeking new ways > to mock and shame them, along with the idea that political correctness was a > method of persecution. An effective Cambridge Analytica technique was to show > subjects blogs that made fun of white people like them, such as People of > Walmart . Bannon had been observing online communities on places like 4chan > and Reddit for years, and he knew how often subgroups of angry young white > men would share content of “liberal elites” mocking “regular” Americans. > There had always been publications that parodied the “hicks” of flyover > country, but social media represented an extraordinary opportunity to rub > “regular” Americans’ noses in the snobbery of coastal elites.
... > attitudinal research on American citizens. > > Soon enough, weird questions began popping up in our research. One day I was > in my London office, checking reports from the field, when I noticed a > project involving Russia-oriented message testing in America. The U.S. > operation was growing rapidly, and several new people had been brought in to > manage the surge in assignments, so it was hard to keep track of every > research stream. I thought that maybe someone had started exploring > Americans’ views on international topics. But when I searched our repository > of questions and data, I could only find data being collected on Russia. Our > team in Oregon had started asking people, “Is Russia entitled to Crimea?” and > “What do you think about Vladimir Putin as a leader?” Focus group leaders > were circulating various photos of Putin and asking people to indicate where > he looked strongest. I started watching video recordings of some of the focus > groups—and they were strange. Photos of Vladimir Putin and Russian narratives > were projected on the wall, and the interviewer was asking groups of American > voters how it made them feel to see a strong leader. > > What was interesting was that even though Russia had been a U.S. adversary > for decades, Putin was admired for his strength as a leader. > > “He has a right to protect his country and do what he thinks is best for his > country,” said one participant as others nodded in agreement. Another told us > that Crimea was Russia’s Mexico, but that, unlike Obama, Putin was taking > action. As I sat alone in the now dark office, watching bizarre clips of > Americans discussing Putin’s claim to Crimea, I wanted answers. Gettleson was > in America at the time. When he answered the phone, I asked if he could > enlighten me about who had authorized a research stream on Putin. He had no > idea. “It just showed up,” he said, “so I assumed it was approved by someone.” > > Patten’s interest in Eastern European politics crossed my mind, but I didn’t > give it a lot of thought. In August 2014, a Palantir staff member sent an > email to the data science team with a link to an article about Russians > stealing millions of Internet browsing records. “Talk about acquiring data!” > they joked. Two minutes later, one of our engineers responded, “We can > exploit similar methods.” Maybe he was joking, maybe he wasn’t, but the firm > had already contracted former Russian ... > Analytica set up camp, Israeli, Russian, British, and French “civic > engagement” projects operated behind fig-leaf cover stories. The unspoken > belief shared by all: Foreign interference in elections does not matter if > those elections are African. > > The company was working nominally in support of Goodluck Jonathan, who was > running for reelection as the president of Nigeria. Jonathan, a Christian, > was running against Muhammadu Buhari, who was a moderate Muslim. Cambridge > Analytica had been hired by a group of Nigerian billionaires who were worried > that if Buhari won the election, he would revoke their oil and mineral > exploration rights, decimating a major source of their income. > > True to form, Cambridge Analytica focused not on how to promote Goodluck > Jonathan’s candidacy but on how to destroy Buhari’s. The billionaires did not > really care who won, so long as the victor understood loud and clear what > they were capable of, and what they were willing to do. In December, > Cambridge Analytica had hired a woman named Brittany Kaiser to become > “director of business development.” Kaiser had the kind of pedigree that Nix > drooled over. In their first meeting, ... > U.K. authorities seized Cambridge Analytica’s servers, the Information > Commissioner’s Office subsequently stated that “some of the systems linked to > the investigation were accessed from IP addresses that resolve to Russia and > other areas of the CIS.” > > It’s eye-opening to summarize what was going on over those final months of my > tenure. Our research was being seeded with questions about Putin and Russia. > The head psychologist who had access to Facebook data was also working for a > Russian-funded project in St. Petersburg, giving presentations in Russian and > describing Cambridge Analytica’s efforts to build a psychological profiling > database of American voters. We had Palantir executives coming in and out of > the office. We had a major Russian company with ties to the FSB probing for > information about our American data assets. We had Nix giving the Russians a > presentation about how good we were at spreading fake news and rumors. And > then there were the internal memos outlining how Cambridge Analytica was > developing new hacking capacity in concert with former Russian intelligence > officers. > > In the year after Steve Bannon became vice president, ... > By this time, the political climate in Britain had become extremely toxic. > Threats were being sent to both Remain- and Leave-supporting MPs (mostly to > the Remain side), there was a disproportionate increase in race-based > violence, and social media was blowing up every day. No one was passive or > nonchalant about what was going on in British politics anymore. People were > awake and people were angry. Very angry. > > A lot of the messaging from the Leave side during this time was targeted > toward "metropolitan elites," as the politicians called them, as well as > people of color and European migrants. Vote Leave eschewed responsibility, > but it was apparent that they had left the race-baiting to Leave.EU, which > gladly (and proudly) took up the cause. A few days before Jo Cox was > murdered, Leave.EU's Farage unveiled a campaign poster showing a caravan of > brown-skinned migrants beneath the words "BREAKING POINT". The move drew > comparisons to Nazi propaganda from the 1930s showing lines of Jewish people > flooding into Europe. > > As I sat in Canada watching the drama unfold, I told myself that Vote Leave > was not the same as Leave.EU, as many of my friends were working for Vote > Leave. Farage's campaign is the racist one using Cambridge Analytica, I > thought. Vote Leave couldn't possibly be pandering to that kind of rhetoric. > I was wrong. ... > campaign advisers not wanting to take on the personal risk of breaking > election laws would find someone inexperienced, often an eager young > volunteer, and nominate them as the campaign's "agent," which would make that > person legally liable for the campaign. That way, if and when wrongdoing was > uncovered, a fall guy was in place and the true perptrators could walk off > scot-free, continuing to enjoy their proximity to power while leaving behind > the betrayed volunteers and broken lives.
