Cambridge Analytica whistleblower: 'We spent $1m harvesting millions of Facebook profiles'

Christopher Wylie, who worked for data firm Cambridge Analytica, reveals how personal information was taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters in order to target them with personalised political advertisements.

At the time the company was owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Donald Trump’s key adviser, Steve Bannon. Its CEO is Alexander Nix

The Guardian YouTube network:

#CambridgeAnalytica #Facebook #AlexanderNix #SteveBannon #DonaldTrump #ChrisWylie #RobertMercer

[xblueskiesburningx]

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
― George Orwell, 1984

[mikehenderson]

As a friend said to me years ago: "The less that people know about you, the better off you are". There's nothing wrong with being invisible. In today's world, you have to be vigilant about protecting your personal space.

[slovokia]

Politics has become recursive mindfucking.

[patriciakedeni]

kinda ironic that a company that is about bringing people together through connection and shared experience is actually dividing and fragmenting and molding them all for money.

[sanakasraoui]

I feel like I'm watching an episode of "Black Mirror"

[mech]

A long time ago I pursued jobs in advertising.
I bailed when I realized it was all about manipulation as opposed to presenting the strengths of a product.
There are so many parallels with politics.

[optimize.]

Excellent interview and deep, deep respect for this man's courage to come out about this.

[Riderules]

Why watch Black Mirror if we have this already!

[haleIrwinG]

No wonder Facebook started to "filtered out comments" on certain threads. They only show you comments you "need" to see based on the data they get from you.

[andreapicco]

Instead of closing our FB accounts, we should fill them with content that diverges, slowly but steadily, from what we really are and from the ideas that we care about. Then, all these apps would harvest nothing but nonsense or, at least, they would have to filter through huge noise data.

[PowaPop]

NSA to Cambridge Analytica.... hold my beer

[brendancoots]

I feel like any ethical person would have instantly recognized that what they were doing was highly unethical and problematic once they started harvesting millions of profiles. I'm sure glad Mr. Wylie came forward, but his ethics are questionable at best.

[johnnyzito]

I signed off facebook two months ago and I'm never going back.

It's crazy that those annoying personality quizzes really did turn out to be the downfall of humanity.

[longpp]

“We risk fragmenting society” man if only he knew

[stephansoderberg]

It’s striking how intelligent and wise wisselblowers are.

[Erminestreet]

Thats it. I'm closing my Facebook account

[billp]

The operational terms here are, "Break society and remold it, "

[KJensenStudio]

Wow, this was eye-opening! A healthy dose of skepticism indeed. I commend him for having the nerve to come forward about this, and I hope he doesn't suffer a 'mishap' because of it.

[Cecil_Augus]

4:40 The part he was going to speak about the Mercer link to RenTech and algorithms was cut. I wonder why.

[EyeLean]

"Steve Bannon saw himself as an intellectual." I love the way he put that.