Guardian writer Carole Cadwalladr joins Morning Joe to discuss Facebook and its impact on discourse and democracy.» Subscribe to MSNBC:
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How Facebook Impacts Discourse And Democracy | MSNBC
In his book Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie tells the inside story of the data mining and psychological manipulation behind the election of Trump, the Brexit referendum, and the connecting to Facebook, WikiLeaks, Russian intelligence, and international hackers.
Mindfk goes inside Cambridge Analytica’s “American operations,” which were driven by Steve Bannon’s vision to remake America and fueled by ghoulish billionaire Robert Mercer’s money, as it weaponized and wielded the massive store of data it had harvested on individuals—in excess of 200 million—to disunite the US and set Americans against each other. Bannon had long sensed that deep within America’s soul lurked an explosive tension. Cambridge Analytica had the data to prove it, and in 2016 Bannon had a presidential campaign to use as his proving ground.
Christopher Wylie was only twenty-four when he got a job with a London firm that worked with the U.K. Ministry of Defense and was charged with helping to build a team of data scientists to create new tools to identify and combat radical extremism online. In short order, those same military tools were turned to political purposes, and Cambridge Analytica was born.
Wylie’s decision to become a whistleblower prompted the largest data-crime investigation in history. It has not only laid bare the profound vulnerabilities—and profound carelessness—in the enormous companies that drive the attention economy, it has also exposed the profound vulnerabilities of democracy itself. What happened in 2016 was just a trial run. Ruthless actors are coming for your data, and they want to control what you think.
At 24, he came up with an idea that led to the foundation of the company Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm that went on to claim a major role in the Leave campaign for Britain’s EU membership referendum, and later became a key figure in digital operations during Trump’s election campaign.
In 2014, Steve Bannon – then executive chairman of the network Breitbart, was Wylie’s boss. And Robert Mercer, the secretive US hedge-fund billionaire and Republican donor, was Cambridge Analytica’s investor. And the idea they bought into was to bring big data and social media to an established military methodology – “information operations” – then turn it on the US electorate.
By that time, Bannon had become Trump’s chief strategist. Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL, had won contracts with the US State Dept and was pitching to the Pentagon, and Wylie was genuinely freaked out. “It’s insane,” Wylie said. “The company has created psychological profiles of 230 million Americans. And now they want to work with the Pentagon? It’s like Nixon on steroids.
Cambridge reached out to WikiLeaks to help distribute Clinton’s stolen emails in 2016. Wylie offers a unique, worm’s-eye view of the events of 2016. Of how Facebook was hijacked, repurposed to become a theatre of war: how it became a launchpad for an extraordinary attack on the US’s democratic process.
Russia, Facebook, Trump, Mercer, Bannon, Brexit. Every one of these threads runs through Cambridge Analytica. Paul-Olivier Dehaye – a data expert and academic based in Switzerland, who published some of the first research into Cambridge Analytica’s processes – says it’s become increasingly apparent that Facebook is “abusive by design.”
Millions of people’s personal information was stolen and used to target them in ways they wouldn’t have seen, and couldn’t have known about, by a mercenary outfit, Cambridge Analytica, who, Wylie says “will work for anyone”. Who would pitch to Russian oil companies, who would subvert elections abroad on behalf of foreign governments. They’re mercenaries. They’ll work for pretty much anyone who pays.
Yep..!
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
Another reason to vote – Putting a check on monopolies & corporate power This isn’t about supporting a political party or even a political candidate. It’s about saving our democracy at the polls: the right to vote and have that vote counted and a peaceful transition of power. Vote as early as possible (vote.org), complete the census and help two people outside your household to do the same. Ben Franklin after the Constitutional Convention in 1778 is believed to have been asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Konstantin Rykov is a propagandist for the Putin government machine. “Rykov is considered to be one of the leading pro-Kremlin bloggers in Russia,” said Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia .
Konstantin Rykov is also the Russian who created Putin’s troll farm, and has boasted online that he helped get Trump elected. His claims of involvement with the Trump team can’t be dismissed for 2 reasons: first, he is very close to Putin, and had a long history of involvement with top levels of the Russian government; and, second, his description of how Trump’s campaign put together an effective internet strategy for information warfare is very close to the evidence revealed in the Mueller Report.
At about 11:14pm on November 6th, 2012, enough states were called for President Obama that he was declared the winner of the election. At 11:29pm, Trump blasted out the following defiant tweet:
Trump: “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!”
11:29 PM – Nov 6, 2012
Konstantin Rykov saw Trump’s tweet pop up in his Twitter feed.
Almost exactly four years later, on November 12th, 2016, Konstantin Rykov tells what happened next in a pair of Facebook posts. In the first post, Rykov explained how he first made contact with Trump:
“Without a moment’s thought, I wrote him a reply, “I’m ready. What should I do?”
Trump replied with a picture. In the picture he was sitting in the armchair of his jet, smiling cheerfully giving the thumbs-up sign.
Rykov explaines how things went from there:
“For four years and two days .. it was necessary to get to everyone in the brain and grab all possible means of mass perception of reality. Ensure the victory of Donald in the election of the US President. Then create a political alliance between the US, France, Russia (and a number of other states) and establish a new world order.
Our idea was insane, but realizable.
In order to understand everything for the beginning, it was necessary to “digitize” all possible types of modern man.
Donald decided to invite for this task — the special scientific department of the “Cambridge University.”
British scientists from Cambridge Analytica suggested making 5,000 existing human psychotypes — the “ideal image” of a possible Trump supporter. Then .. put this image back on all psychotypes and thus pick up a universal key to anyone and everyone.
Then it was only necessary to upload this data to information flows and social networks. And we began to look for those who would have coped with this task better than others.
At the very beginning there was not very much. A pair of hacker groups, civil journalists from WikiLeaks and political strategist Mikhail Kovalev.
The next step was to develop a system for transferring tasks and information, so that no intelligence and NSA could burn it.
Keep in mind, Konstantin Rykov revealed all of this on Facebook just four days after Trump was elected. It was before people started asking questions about Cambridge Analytica or targeted social media ads. Rykov might have been boasting as he spiked the football in the end zone. What he didn’t think at that point, however, is that he had any reason to hide what he’d done.
His comments were also made well before details of Russian meddling in the presidential election were reported in the mainstream media. If Rykov wasn’t involved, then how on earth would he know as much as he confessed?
Putin is a slobbering moron just like Trump. Russia would be much better off with a reliable figure like Biden, but the moron Putin has convinced himself that he can control an uncontrollable dimwit like Trump.
Stupidity all around.
Didn’t Russian Oligarch Yuri MILNER (associate of Vladimir Putin) Invest huge Sums in “FACEBOOK And TWITTER” using Money Obtained From Several Russian Agencies (does this happen in Putin’s Russia without PUTINS Knowledge). And hasn’t Yuri MILNER Now Invested in ‘some’ venture with Jared KUSHNER TRUMP’S son-in-law?
philpott kentucky You forgot to mention Bernie Sanders and the Bernie Bros.
Oops their it is. Facebook caught.
MSNBC doesn’t provide a link to it so here is Ms. Carole Cadwalladr’s FB TedTalk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSMr-3GGvQ
It’s Orwellian. God help us all.
Honey, unfortunately, I doubt most Republicans or Trumps supporters have READ Orwell….. it seems that the US education is well and truly aimed towards ‘religion’ and ‘revisionist US history’……. they are ignorant and know no better…… except they SHOULD in this day and age of being able to access books, research papers, scientific studies on the internet. But they are lazy……. they are only willing to listen to what is fed into their earpieces….
@Margaret Oyston And you have? Isn’t cancel culture and revisionist history just like throwing things down the ‘memory hole’? The Left is FAR MORE Orwellian than the right.
I totally agree! We must expose Fakebook
She is spot on. Conmen have taken hold of democracy.
Facebook is a communist organization working for the Biden Administration.
Joe Biden will impose forced vaccinations on you even if you live for 200 years, you will never make sense.
“I don’t think science knows”- person who claimed there were airports in 1776
Well he meant Alien Airports … :p
It’s like the invasion of the body snatchers. Normal people’s mind has been invaded.
Facebook is BOT central!!
brilliantly said, ty ms cadwalladr and mr scarborough.
All of social media needs to ban Trump even news outlets who in there right mind would continue to put a microphone in someone face that doesn’t live in reality stop legitimizing this murderer
“The further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those that speak it.”
George Orwell
“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’.”
― George Orwell, The Complete Works of George Orwell (ed. 1998)
“If I had understood the situation a bit better I should probably have joined the Anarchists.”
― George Orwell, Collected Essays; Vol 1 page 289
I hate Facebook I left it two years ago, it was the best move I did.. Facebook is a desgrace to the world.. no one stopping the lies & fake adds ..
Me too i close my account they should ban Facebook.
Me too. It was actually causing me stress.
Your are absolutely right!. Facebook is responsible for two deaths and one wounded from that 17year old kid, following Evangelist Christian, right wing militias post’s!. Facebook should be SUE’D the living S**T out of!!!. F**K Facebook!!!.
this explains some of the insanity. just would like to know why entire broadcasts are not shown…they always seem to get cut off
My ex who spends his down time up to his neck in FB believes all kinds of lies that he seen on Facebook. It’s like he has been brainwashed
I have friends who find comfort in Facebook. Whether true or not. It’s on their page, so real. When it’s not
“If I were to run, I would run as a Republican. They are the dumbest
group of voters in the country. Believe anything that appears on Fox
News. I could lie and they would believe me. I bet my numbers would be
fabulous. ”- Donald Trump in the 1998 People magazine interview
People, need to be better users of the internet. Mark Zuckerberg needs to implement fact checking. Fox News has also been spreading misinformation. So old fashioned sources have been affected as well.
Deleted my FB account. No regrets.
I cancelled my Facebook account three years ago and haven’t missed it for a minute. And I won’t join any group that requires a FB account.