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Cambridge Analytica, Psychometrics, Russia, and the Trump Campaign
- Thread starter HomerThompson
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This was part two of three. First part was the Wylie whistleblower on Facebook data leak. Third part is rumored to be "US Presidential Election".
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As far as I’m aware, we’ve never worked for a Russian company,” Mr. Nix added. “We’ve never worked with a Russian organization in Russia or any other country, and we don’t have any relationship with Russia or Russian individuals.”
But Mr. Nix’s business did have some dealings with Russian interests, according to company documents and interviews.
Mr. Nix is a director of SCL Group, a British political and defense contractor, and chief executive of its American offshoot, Cambridge Analytica, which advised the Trump campaign. The firms’ employees, who often overlap, had contact in 2014 and 2015 with executives from Lukoil, the Russian oil giant.
Lukoil was interested in how data was used to target American voters, according to two former company insiders who said there were at least three meetings with Lukoil executives in London and Turkey. SCL and Lukoil denied that the talks were political in nature, and SCL also said there were no meetings in London.
The contacts took place as Cambridge Analytica was building a roster of Republican clients in the United States — and harvesting the Facebook profiles of over 50 million users to develop tools to analyze voters’ behavior.
Cambridge Analytica also included extensive questions about Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in surveys it was carrying out in American focus groups in 2014. It is not clear what — or which client — prompted the line of questioning, which asked for views on topics ranging from Mr. Putin’s popularity to Russian expansionism.
On two promotional documents obtained by The New York Times, SCL said it did business in Russia. In both documents, the country is highlighted on world maps that specify the location of SCL clients, with one of the maps noting that the clients were for the firm’s elections division. In a statement, SCL said an employee had done “commercial work” about 25 years ago “for a private company in Russia.”
Photo
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, left, meeting with Vagit Alekperov. He is the head of Lukoil, an oil giant that was in talks with Cambridge Analytica employees. Credit Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin, via Reuters
Cambridge Analytica has been a political flash point since its role in the Trump campaign attracted scrutiny after the election. While Mr. Nix’s firm turned over some records to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during its investigation of Russian interference, Democrats on the committee want a fuller review. “It is imperative to interview a broader range of individuals employed by or linked to Cambridge Analytica,” they said in a report this month.
Asked about the Russian oil company, a spokesman for SCL said that in 2014 the firm’s commercial division “discussed helping Lukoil Turkey better engage with its loyalty-card customers at gas stations.” The spokesman said SCL was not ultimately hired.
Arash Repac, chief executive of Lukoil Eurasia Petrol, offered a different explanation for the talks. He said that a meeting he attended with SCL in Turkey involved a promotional campaign with local soccer teams.
“We needed somebody to guide us with the customer data that we were collecting,” he wrote in response to a question from The Times. “Even though our campaign went ahead, we decided not to cooperate with SCL. No contracts were signed.”
But Christopher Wylie, who helped found Cambridge Analytica and develop the company’s voter-profiling technology, said Lukoil showed interest in how the company used data to tailor messaging to American voters.
“I remember being super confused,” said Mr. Wylie, who took part in one of the Lukoil meetings.
“I kept asking Alexander, ‘Can you explain to me what they want?’” he said, referring to Mr. Nix. “I don’t understand why Lukoil wants to know about political targeting in America.”
“We’re sending them stuff about political targeting — they then come and ask more about political targeting,” Mr. Wylie said, adding that Lukoil “just didn’t seem to be interested” in how the techniques could be used commercially.
Mr. Wylie, a former contractor, left SCL before the talks concluded and could not say what became of the relationship with the oil company. He had a falling out with SCL and tried to set up a rival business. SCL said he had violated a nondisclosure agreement and that his comments were an attempt to hurt the company.
A second person familiar with the discussions backed up Mr. Wylie’s account, but spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a confidentiality agreement.
Though Lukoil is not state-owned, it depends on Kremlin support, and its chief executive, Vagit Alekperov, has met with Mr. Putin on a number of occasions. Reuters reported last year that Lukoil and other companies received instructions from the state energy ministry on providing news stories favorable to Russian leadership.
But Mr. Nix’s business did have some dealings with Russian interests, according to company documents and interviews.
Mr. Nix is a director of SCL Group, a British political and defense contractor, and chief executive of its American offshoot, Cambridge Analytica, which advised the Trump campaign. The firms’ employees, who often overlap, had contact in 2014 and 2015 with executives from Lukoil, the Russian oil giant.
Lukoil was interested in how data was used to target American voters, according to two former company insiders who said there were at least three meetings with Lukoil executives in London and Turkey. SCL and Lukoil denied that the talks were political in nature, and SCL also said there were no meetings in London.
The contacts took place as Cambridge Analytica was building a roster of Republican clients in the United States — and harvesting the Facebook profiles of over 50 million users to develop tools to analyze voters’ behavior.
Cambridge Analytica also included extensive questions about Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in surveys it was carrying out in American focus groups in 2014. It is not clear what — or which client — prompted the line of questioning, which asked for views on topics ranging from Mr. Putin’s popularity to Russian expansionism.
On two promotional documents obtained by The New York Times, SCL said it did business in Russia. In both documents, the country is highlighted on world maps that specify the location of SCL clients, with one of the maps noting that the clients were for the firm’s elections division. In a statement, SCL said an employee had done “commercial work” about 25 years ago “for a private company in Russia.”
Photo
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, left, meeting with Vagit Alekperov. He is the head of Lukoil, an oil giant that was in talks with Cambridge Analytica employees. Credit Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin, via Reuters
Cambridge Analytica has been a political flash point since its role in the Trump campaign attracted scrutiny after the election. While Mr. Nix’s firm turned over some records to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during its investigation of Russian interference, Democrats on the committee want a fuller review. “It is imperative to interview a broader range of individuals employed by or linked to Cambridge Analytica,” they said in a report this month.
Asked about the Russian oil company, a spokesman for SCL said that in 2014 the firm’s commercial division “discussed helping Lukoil Turkey better engage with its loyalty-card customers at gas stations.” The spokesman said SCL was not ultimately hired.
Arash Repac, chief executive of Lukoil Eurasia Petrol, offered a different explanation for the talks. He said that a meeting he attended with SCL in Turkey involved a promotional campaign with local soccer teams.
“We needed somebody to guide us with the customer data that we were collecting,” he wrote in response to a question from The Times. “Even though our campaign went ahead, we decided not to cooperate with SCL. No contracts were signed.”
But Christopher Wylie, who helped found Cambridge Analytica and develop the company’s voter-profiling technology, said Lukoil showed interest in how the company used data to tailor messaging to American voters.
“I remember being super confused,” said Mr. Wylie, who took part in one of the Lukoil meetings.
“I kept asking Alexander, ‘Can you explain to me what they want?’” he said, referring to Mr. Nix. “I don’t understand why Lukoil wants to know about political targeting in America.”
“We’re sending them stuff about political targeting — they then come and ask more about political targeting,” Mr. Wylie said, adding that Lukoil “just didn’t seem to be interested” in how the techniques could be used commercially.
Mr. Wylie, a former contractor, left SCL before the talks concluded and could not say what became of the relationship with the oil company. He had a falling out with SCL and tried to set up a rival business. SCL said he had violated a nondisclosure agreement and that his comments were an attempt to hurt the company.
A second person familiar with the discussions backed up Mr. Wylie’s account, but spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a confidentiality agreement.
Though Lukoil is not state-owned, it depends on Kremlin support, and its chief executive, Vagit Alekperov, has met with Mr. Putin on a number of occasions. Reuters reported last year that Lukoil and other companies received instructions from the state energy ministry on providing news stories favorable to Russian leadership.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-russia.html
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According to Christopher Wylie, who worked with the data firm Cambridge Analytica, the 2016 campaign had been in talks with the data firm before President Donald Trump ever announced he was running.
Cambridge Analytica is under fire from Facebook for distributing data on 15 million users, which is against their terms of service. He explained that the company was also working extensively with Russia including Russian oil companies and a psychologist that was working on Russian-funded projects going back and forth between London and Russia. The psychologist focused on profiling Facebook users’ personalities.
This person is Dr. Aleksander Kogan. Who, I am not bullshitting, briefly changed his name to Dr. Spectre. He works at Cambridge University AND University of St. Petersburg. Cambridge Analytica is under fire from Facebook for distributing data on 15 million users, which is against their terms of service. He explained that the company was also working extensively with Russia including Russian oil companies and a psychologist that was working on Russian-funded projects going back and forth between London and Russia. The psychologist focused on profiling Facebook users’ personalities.
“So, I really think it’s important for Americans to know what this company has been doing with their data,” Wylie said. “And I really think it’s important to find out, was this data used to help elect Donald Trump.”
While he left the company in 2014, he said he knows that they were meeting with Trump campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and Steve Bannon in 2015 prior to Trump’s announcement.
He explained that Cambridge Analytica was born from another company that was a defense contractor based out of London. The data then was used to “profile algorithms to allow them to explore mental vulnerabilities in people and map out ways to inject information into different streams of channels of content online so people started to see things all over the place that may or may not have been true.”
Wylie said that Cambridge Analytica “took fake news to a new level by pairing it with algorithms.”
If enough information is injected into someone’s online experience and they’re being bombarded by it in many different places, there is a greater chance they’ll believe it, which he called “informational dominance.”
While political ads say the candidate’s name and proclaim “I approved this message,” the work by Cambridge Analytica has no disclosure requirement.
“What Cambridge Analytica does is create a web of disinformation online so people start going down the rabbit hole of clicking on blogs, websites, etc… that make people think that certain things are happening that may not be,” he continued.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/wh...g-key-trump-campaign-officials-far-back-2015/
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It is simple, they are slum lord crooks, everybody in ny/nj area knows it.
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This chick basically laid out the whole thing before this news broke. Turns out that letting these corporations having all our personal info to build complete profiles of us is having an effect on our democracy.
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Holy shit. That's amazing.
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Honestly if I was the President, I'd shut Facebook down.
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They say with 100 "likes" to comments and media stories they can build a profile of you that would be deeper understanding of your personality and beliefs than that of your spouse.
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It's stunning, frankly.
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More weak sauce
https://www.channel4.com/news/cambr...x-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation
Revealed: Trump’s election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians
https://www.channel4.com/news/cambr...x-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation
Revealed: Trump’s election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians
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I don't understand why there would be the need for collusion
I do think this is pretext to go after something deeper that is real
As far as election meddling goes, this is what world powers do. No one is more guilty than us, except for maybe bloody old England, but the Russians aren't new to this either and they got us figured out.
I thought then and still think now that if the election was swayed, it was swayed by Comey coming out a week before the election with all that rehashed email talk.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43465700
The UK's Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham says she will seek a warrant to look at the databases and servers used by British data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.
The firm is accused of using the personal data of 50 million Facebook members, amassed via a personality quiz app created by an academic.
Former employee Christopher Wylie claims the company used the data to influence the US presidential election.
The firm denies the allegations.
Ms Denham had demanded access to Cambridge Analytica's servers by 18:00 GMT but said the firm had missed her deadline.
"I'm not accepting their response so therefore I'll be applying to the court for a warrant," she said.
"We need to get in there, we need to look at the databases, we need to look at the servers and understand how data was processed or deleted by Cambridge Analytica."
Facebook has also announced that it has hired its own digital forensic team to audit Cambridge Analytica.
Personality app
Cambridge Analytica insists that it followed the correct procedures.
"This is part of a comprehensive internal and external review that we are conducting to determine the accuracy of the claims that the Facebook data in question still exists," Facebook said.
"If this data still exists, it would be a grave violation of Facebook's policies and an unacceptable violation of trust and the commitments these groups made."
Facebook added that Aleksandr Kogan, the creator of the personality app from which the Facebook data had been harvested, had also agreed to be audited.
However, Mr Wylie, who made the claims about the way the data was gathered and used, had declined.
On Monday, Cambridge Analytica was the focus of Channel 4 News report in which an undercover reporter met the company's executives.
The reporter posed as a Sri Lankan businessman seeking to discredit a political rival.
In the film, chief executive Alexander Nix was filmed giving examples of how his firm could arrange for it to happen.
Mr Nix told the BBC's Newsnight programme that he regarded the report as a "misrepresentation of the facts" and said he felt the firm had been "deliberately entrapped".
The UK's Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham says she will seek a warrant to look at the databases and servers used by British data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.
The firm is accused of using the personal data of 50 million Facebook members, amassed via a personality quiz app created by an academic.
Former employee Christopher Wylie claims the company used the data to influence the US presidential election.
The firm denies the allegations.
Ms Denham had demanded access to Cambridge Analytica's servers by 18:00 GMT but said the firm had missed her deadline.
"I'm not accepting their response so therefore I'll be applying to the court for a warrant," she said.
"We need to get in there, we need to look at the databases, we need to look at the servers and understand how data was processed or deleted by Cambridge Analytica."
Facebook has also announced that it has hired its own digital forensic team to audit Cambridge Analytica.
Personality app
Cambridge Analytica insists that it followed the correct procedures.
"This is part of a comprehensive internal and external review that we are conducting to determine the accuracy of the claims that the Facebook data in question still exists," Facebook said.
"If this data still exists, it would be a grave violation of Facebook's policies and an unacceptable violation of trust and the commitments these groups made."
Facebook added that Aleksandr Kogan, the creator of the personality app from which the Facebook data had been harvested, had also agreed to be audited.
However, Mr Wylie, who made the claims about the way the data was gathered and used, had declined.
On Monday, Cambridge Analytica was the focus of Channel 4 News report in which an undercover reporter met the company's executives.
The reporter posed as a Sri Lankan businessman seeking to discredit a political rival.
In the film, chief executive Alexander Nix was filmed giving examples of how his firm could arrange for it to happen.
Mr Nix told the BBC's Newsnight programme that he regarded the report as a "misrepresentation of the facts" and said he felt the firm had been "deliberately entrapped".
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Check out the Russia Megathread, I posted some interesting theories on the Comey reopening the Investigation.
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"things don't have to be true — as long as they're believed"
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Here’s the video. It’s worth a watch.
