Cambridge Analytica Took Fake News to Another Level: Ex Employee

Former employee of Cambridge Analytica accused the firm of misusing data of over 50 million users.

Cambridge Analytica has denied all allegations, claiming that they do not report false or fake news.

(Photo: AP)

Video Editor: Ashutosh Bhardwaj

A former employee of Cambridge Analytica, in an interview with NBC News’ Today Show, criticised the firm and also Facebook over a data breach of 50 million users. Chris Wylie, the firm’s ex-research director, claims that the firm used this data to create a psychological profile of these users and use it to forward the propaganda of their clients.

This data was used to create profiling algorithms that would allow us to explore mental vulnerabilities of people and then map out ways to inject information into different streams or channels of content online so that people started to see things all over the place that may or may not have been true. This is a company that really took fake news to the next level by pairing it with algorithms.

Chris Wylie, Ex-Research Director, Cambridge Analytica to NBC News’ Today

Cambridge Analytica has denied all allegations, claiming that they do not report false or fake news. They have also denied receiving any data from a researcher accused of harvesting millions of Facebook users’ personal information.

Cambridge Analytica’s approach was based on an idea called ‘informational dominance’, whereby you take control of “every channel of information around a person” and then inject content in order to influence the perception of the user. Since you control the source of information for the users, it makes them susceptible to fake news.

According to Wylie, the data obtained through Facebook was used to deliver pro-Trump material during the 2016 US Presidential Election.

Cambridge Analytica was meeting with Corey Lewandowski (then Trump campaign manager) in 2015 before Trump had even announced (his candidacy) and offered the services that I am talking about right now. Steve (Banon) wanted weapons for his culture war. We offered him a way to accomplish what he wanted to do which was to change the culture of America.

Chris Wylie, Ex-Research Director, Cambridge Analytica

Wylie also slammed Facebook because of the breach of data happened on the applications available on their social media platform.

Why Facebook didn’t make an inquiry when they noticed that tens of millions of records were being pulled this way. I don’t know, you would have to ask Facebook. But Facebook, at least in the technical sense, facilitated the process because they had applications that had these permissions in the first place.

Chris Wylie, Ex-Research Director, Cambridge Analytica

Wylie also claimed that the firm has been working with the Russians. He said that the company was in talks with the CEO of Lukoil, which is known to have links with the Russian state security service FSB.

(With inputs from AP and NBC News)