Cambridge Analytica Brexit and election fraud
We spent $1m harvesting millions of Facebook profiles. — Christopher Wylie
We couldn’t have done it without them [AIQ]. — Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave campaign manager
I voted Leave for reasons of sovereignty and democracy. Isn’t it ironic that this is exactly what we’ve now lost? — Shahmir Sanni
Facebook exists to collect and abuse personal data.
Facebook apps, surveys, quizzes, games, harvest that data.
Cambridge Analytica used a facebook app to harvest the data of 50 million facebook users then used that data to manipulate them.
Two weeks ago, Channel 4 News broke the news of what Facebook and Cambridge Analytica were doing with the data, the lengths to which Cambridge Analytica was prepared to go to rig elections. The Channel 4 scoop of the decade has subsequently reverberated around the world, US, UK, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Mexico.
Compelling evidence has been presented by Channel 4 News, Carole Cadwalladr, Christopher Wylie, Shahmir Sanni and others of what appears to be criminal collusion and election fraud between AggregateIQ, Cambridge Analytica, Vote Leave, BeLeave, senior Tories and their advisers, to rig the European Referendum.
‘Find Christopher Wylie.” That instruction — 13 months ago — came from the very first ex-Cambridge Analytica employee I met. He was unequivocal. Wylie would have answers to the two questions that were troubling me most. He could tell me about Facebook. And he would know about Canada.
What Christopher Wylie knows about Facebook, the world now knows. Facebook certainly knows — its market value is down $100bn. But the Canadian connection remains more elusive. What it is. Why it matters. And why it triggered my search for Wylie.
Did this alleged criminal activity sway the Brexit result? I think not, despite the persuasive testimony from Christopher Wylie.
In total, £3.9m of leave campaign funds were spent with AIQ. Four different groups used the firm, even though all these campaigns were supposedly separate and could only “work together” if they shared their spending limits. Vote Leave spent £2,697,000. There was the £675,000 via BeLeave. A sum of £100,000 that Vote Leave donated to Veterans for Britain, which Veterans for Britain then paid to AIQ. AIQ also received £32,750 from the Democratic Unionist party. Whichever way one looks at it, AIQ would seem to be fundamental to the data-driven targeting of “persuadables” in the final days of the campaign.
These four campaign groups mysteriously and independently found the same tiny data analytics firm, located in a sleepy town on an island off the west coast of Canada, 5,000 miles away.
In April 2017, Dominic Cummings told me by email that Vote Leave had found the firm “on the internet”. Darren Grimes told the Electoral Commission the same thing. The only problem? Online archives show that AIQ’s website didn’t show up in Google searches until after the referendum. “I looked at the time,” says Sanni. “I was, like, ‘Who is AIQ?’ And there was nothing. No website. Nothing.”
Both sides lied to swing the result. From what little we have seen, IAQ told the truth.
European Union was established as a cartel for Big Business, a democracy-free zone. And nothing has changed. An Empire that centralises power, that brutally crushes any dissent on the periphery, as we have seen with Greece.
No Empire lasts for ever. The EU is on the verge of implosion. We must plan for that eventuality, to create a Europe-wide network of cooperating democratic sovereign countries.
Where though I do agree with Christopher Wylie, is where there was cheating, those involved must be held to account. And that also applies to the overspending by Tory candidates in the last but one General Election uncovered by Channel 4 News for which there has still to be criminal prosecutions.
Deathly silence from Mark Zuckerberg until Facebook stock valuation started to crash. He is still showing contempt for facebook users by his refusal to testify before a House of Commons Select Committee.
Facebook must be regulated to stop the collection and abuse of personal data, broken up, stripped of Instagram and WhatsApp, and ultimately handed to over to its users to function as global commons and open coop.
No one disputes the value of facebook as a social network, what is at issue is the collection and abuse of personal data.
The activities of companies like Cambridge Analytica, a threat to democracy, must not be permitted to operate.
Facebook users must also take personal responsibility for the safeguarding of their personal data. They would not hand personal data to a stranger in the street, leave cash lying around, why therefore so careless with personal data?
Facebook users need to act now. Overwrite then delete all personal data, never post live links where you are, disable all facebook apps, disable location, do not use Instagram, do not use WhatsApp.
The most valuable data on facebook, is your personal data, where you are.
Facebook apps, games, surveys, quizzes, harvest personal data.
Instagram is owned by facebook. Pictures posted act as bait to draw into the Facebook walled garden. Instagram claims ownership rights to the pictures. The pictures are not visible on twitter. If you wish pictures to be visible post direct to twitter.
There are superior alternatives to WhatsApp, for example Skype.
Do we value democracy? If yes, then we must act.
