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Massive New Cambridge Analytica Leak Will Show Global Voter Manipulation on 'Industrial Scale' (theguardian.com) 148

A new leak of more than 100,000 documents from Cambridge Analytica's work in 68 different countries "will lay bare the global infrastructure of an operation used to manipulate voters on 'an industrial scale,'" writes the Guardian.

Long-time Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed shares their report: The release of documents began on New Year's Day on an anonymous Twitter account, @HindsightFiles, with links to material on elections in Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil. The documents were revealed to have come from Brittany Kaiser, an ex-Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower, and to be the same ones subpoenaed by Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Kaiser, who starred in the Oscar-shortlisted Netflix documentary The Great Hack, decided to go public after last month's election in Britain. "It's so abundantly clear our electoral systems are wide open to abuse," she said. "I'm very fearful about what is going to happen in the US election later this year, and I think one of the few ways of protecting ourselves is to get as much information out there as possible."

The documents were retrieved from her email accounts and hard drives, and though she handed over some material to parliament in April 2018, she said there were thousands and thousands more pages which showed a "breadth and depth of the work" that went "way beyond what people think they know about 'the Cambridge Analytica scandal....'" Kaiser said the Facebook data scandal was part of a much bigger global operation that worked with governments, intelligence agencies, commercial companies and political campaigns to manipulate and influence people, and that raised huge national security implications.

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Massive New Cambridge Analytica Leak Will Show Global Voter Manipulation on 'Industrial Scale'

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  • Just goes to show (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @12:41PM (#59589172) Journal

    Voters are a very soft target, easy to manipulate, compelled to follow anything that comes along. Sounds like people are attacking the wrong issue.

    • by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @01:37PM (#59589308) Homepage
      Voters are also very susceptible to Dunning-Krueger in the form of "I couldn't possibly be manipulated!". As with online security and not only trying to prevent yourself from being hacked but assume that you will be and aim to be capable of detecting and recovery from it, the only reasonable stance to take is that you *will* be subject to manipulation and take steps to avoid falling victim to it. Unfortunately, that requires putting effort into things like fact-checking, not relying on single sources of information but actively seeking out contrary views then drawing your own conclusion, and generally being a good deal more critical in our thinking. Taking the time to extrapolate from a given statement and thinking about the implications and the likely consequences wouldn't hurt either, e.g. "Taking control of our borders" == "More invasive border control and less privacy for *you* as well".

      Yeah, that's not going to happen.
      • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        Cambridge Analytica was merely the tip of the iceberg.

        It's time to take a deeper dig into the pile of dirt of tracking people.

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @05:17PM (#59589950)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Cederic ( 9623 )

        actively seeking out contrary views

        This is key to me, and the primary reason I reject censorship.

        The people that don't understand other viewpoints are incapable of making good decisions. The people that refuse to stray from their echo chambers devise extremist policy. The politicians that reject positions they disagree with by claiming those positions are held only by idiots, the uneducated or -ists fail to address legitimate concerns.

        The UK election last month was a fantastic validation of the public's ability to disregard the broadcast med

    • by U0K ( 6195040 )
      Sounds like YOU make a false dichotomy out of the issue and choose to attack the victims.

      Look, I completely agree that a independent and critical thinking skills are a necessity for democracy to work properly.
      And A root of the problem is that those in power like to keep the masses as ignorant as possible, because that is in part of what keeps them in power.
      But that does not make such voter manipulations any less morally objectionable.
    • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @03:16PM (#59589570)

      Voters are a very soft target, easy to manipulate, compelled to follow anything that comes along. Sounds like people are attacking the wrong issue.

      As are voting machines.

    • Re:Just goes to show (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 05, 2020 @04:35PM (#59589790)

      I think there's been this kind of naive idea that what happened in Germany in the 30s is some kind of one off unrepeatable horror, that there was something special about people in German back that and that special thing about them that made them manipulable couldn't possibly ever apply to any of population.

      There's this view that the modern far right, in part due to having rebranded as alt-right (but being the exact same thing politically) is different, we see extreme analogies - they're not the same thing because they don't want concentration camps and so forth.

      But it's worth bearing in mind that the Nazis weren't calling for concentration camps before they got into power either, in fact, part of the reason post-war Germany was fairly easy to subdue and face more in line with Anglo-American thinking was the fact that the general population had no idea about concentration camps, and as soon as they did they fully realised the horror of what their government had been doing.

      Thus, the idea that Nazism is unrepeatable, that it's a one off, a horror we'll never see again, is one of the most dangerous ideas doing the rounds right now, and it's one the far right (oh, sorry, my bad, "alt-right") are actively promoting. Human history is full of repetition of populism and such acts, in fact, even here in England we massacred the jews in the 1200s because the Church of England made it illegal for Christians to lend money for profit, as such the Jews did it, and as such the Jews became wealthy, when the King ran the coffers dry he blamed the "rich jews", and so the massacres and expulsions began. Sound familiar? Soros conspiracy theories and all?

      The people have always been a weak point, and when we allow those who wish to exploit them the ability to do so by allowing them to shout people down with cries of "snowflake" and such whilst being the biggest snowflakes of all the second their ideology is challenge then the people will continue to be vulnerable. Western liberalism is the entire basis of the West's success and prosperity, and it needs to grow it's balls back precisely so the populace isn't hijacked by forces that don't share it's interests and instead seek to corrupt and destroy it. We've forgotten how to defend ourselves against the weakness of the populace and we've let our enemies who seek to destroy our wealth use our freedom of speech and so forth against whilst being too scared to use it to challenge aggressive opponents who proclaim to be the defenders of it and yet support it only when it's being used in a manner that benefits their rhetoric - the far(alt)-right.

      Of course, I'm sure I'll now get shouts of Godwin, because that in itself has become the far right's go to method of shutting down conversation about their ideology, even though it's a bastardisation of what Godwin himself stated was the point of Godwin's law - he himself has been abundantly clear it's only relevant to irrelevant comparisons to Nazism and Hitler.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Dantoo ( 176555 )

        It wasn't the Church of England. Henry VIII started that.
        The 12th Century assault on Jewish people was principally an assault on debt. The Crown benefited greatly from usury (interest bearing loans) through taxation. It was highly beneficial to the Crown to protect the King's Jews.

        In the turmoil surrounding Richard I absence in France and then Crusading and ultimately internment for ransom in Austria, many looked to stir up the mob and destroy both Jews and their lending records. Any excuse was good enou

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        There's this view that the modern far right, in part due to having rebranded as alt-right (but being the exact same thing politically) is different, we see extreme analogies - they're not the same thing because they don't want concentration camps and so forth.

        But it's worth bearing in mind that the Nazis weren't calling for concentration camps before they got into power either

        Quote trick, Republicans are like Nazis because like the Nazis they aren't calling for concentration camps? By your logic, the only way a political party could not be like the Nazis is to publicly call for concentration camps!

        Is Bernie Sanders like the Nazis? I've never heard him call for concentration camps...

        • I think the point is one does not need to call for concentration camps from the get-go to be like the Nazis. You're trying to make it out like the grandparent post is claiming more than it does.

    • those grandmas just need training in conjob detection.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @11:35PM (#59590934)

      Well, democracy is an abysmally bad political system, all other known ones are just worse.

      Unfortunately, except for the independent thinkers (maybe 10-15% of the population) most people are easy to manipulate, for example by use of fear and most people are basically incapable of checking facts. Add to that the Dunning-Kruger effect, which prevents people from learning (after all, they already know everything, right?) and you have a recipe for disaster. Can be nicely observed around the globe and throughout history.

      The question is, can this be fixed? I am doubtful. Education does help a bit, but not very much.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @11:40PM (#59590944) Homepage

      Nay, not voters, not at all, not that broad group, a more select group. The sheeple of Facebook, not customers to be provided a service, sheeple to be supplied as a service, to be shorn, slaughter or have their dropped into the front of the gum boots the overseers are wearing, so the sheeple can not get away as they are ridden.

      Not you typical voter but specifically gullible facebook users. This should be a real warning as to why you should drop facebook, I mean it is becoming a kind of embarrassing public stain, bahh, bahh, bahh, go the egoistic of facebook following the herd on populary ways to present yourself, of being a good little consumer, cheering consumption.

    • Indeed. Seeing something on Facebook shouldn't be enough to sway your vote. Especially some of the nonsense that was floating around in the 2016 election.

  • Elections?! Communist thing!
    • Actually, communists never had any meaningful elections. There's often 101% votes from the Party with 103% participation, only one candidate allowed to run, bussing workers to a polling place with not-so-secret ballots (even if the vote is a dog-and-pony show, it's important those who tried to vote freely are punished), and so on, so on.

      "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes."

  • by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @12:46PM (#59589180)

    What's the difference between this and the regular shenanigans that are pulled?

    In my state a special interest group got a state judge voted off the bench by launching an ad calming he would fall asleep during trials a week before the election. It was completely false, but there wasn't time to launch a counter-campaign, so he got booted off the bench. By all accounts he was a decent judge - he just ruled against a certain very powerful group of interests, so they had him booted. This was somewhat unprecedented - judges rarely got voted off the bench.

    In a bit of karma, the judge the group backed to replace the one that got voted out, was recently kicked off the bench, and disbarred, for presiding over cases the judge had a vested interest in and, refusing to recuse themselves.

    • No real difference other than an iteration on the profound intrusiveness of the techniques and the involvement of direct participation from non-citizens. Both of these things violated numerous legal boundaries designed to mitigate the negative impacts of bad actors, but the latter is actual treason.

    • Re:SOP (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RalphSlate ( 128202 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @01:04PM (#59589244) Homepage

      I think the difference is in the individual intimate psychological matching of the false messages.

      If a candidate runs a mass-media campaign that says "my opponent voted to kill dogs", the opponent can address this with a similar mass-media campaign that refutes it, and can also call out the original candidate for lying.

      Facebook essentially allows a candidate to tailor a secret message to people, whereby the opponent may never even know that he is being lied about. The candidate will give someone whose life revolves around dogs the anti-dog message, and someone whose life revolves around parrots an anti-parrot message.

      The scale and precision of the psychological targeting is the problem.

    • Nothing (Score:2, Insightful)

      Trump used social media and data analysis to win an election. Obama did it in 2008 and 2012 and was labeled as revolutionary.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Obama obeyed the rules and didn't abuse the system. Permission was obtained and use of it was transparent.

        CA stole data and used it illegally.

  • Don't forget that name; I'm sure it will come up at some point in the future. No way to tell if they'll have success or not (lacking a good portion of their data assets from the Cambridge Analytica days), but should be interesting.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 05, 2020 @12:50PM (#59589196)
    Propaganda has been a tool used since mankind learned to communicate. That the internet makes this so much more pervasive and easier to utilize, shouldn't be new, or news. Be careful what you wish for.
  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @12:51PM (#59589202)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

      "A combination of brain-dead voters who dont care to investigate or think critically about the issues facing their nation, and a tone-deaf set of pre-defined parties that select candidates based solely on market research. "

      A rather daunting task when every source of information available to the average person is infected with the same problems as Social Media.

      Your local " news " is typically owned by a handful of companies all of which have their own agenda to push. Your " news " always has a spin applied

  • Cambridge analytica merely took advantage of the infamous loophole in the Facebook API which could be exploited to grab userdata. That's it. Hundreds of other entities - some commercial, some political, some harmless, some nefarious - did the same thing. Obama's campaign was able to grab the entire facebook social graf before the 2012 election... maxine waters even bragged about it. Im tired of the world being dragged along with leftists still hyperventilating about OrangeManBad winning in 2016... its gett
    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      They're still in denial about the loss - blame it on anything but the candidate.
      • by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @03:19PM (#59589578)

        Hilary was indeed a horrible candidate. Electing Bozo the Clown instead does not make you look any smarter though.

        • The Republican voters are sheep, they vote as told. Democratic voters only vote if their candidate is better than the Republican one. Given the choice of 2 Republicans (Hillary and Trump) they stayed home.
    • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      it wasn't because some evil mastermind used a social net to mind control voters into doing something they would have probably done anyway

      So you are saying that advertising doesn't work? And that it's OK to target specific, susceptible people with false narratives and propaganda?

      The fight (from either side) isn't over hard core believers, its about manipulating the undecided to swing your way.

      • by jwymanm ( 627857 )
        Yes. Yes it is ok to do that. It's called free speech. Politicians lie every day in their message and never deliver on their promises. You going to ban all their advertisements saying they are going to do X when we know they're all about themselves doing/profiting from Y? If you start banning that what is going to be allowed or not?
      • Hillary spent over 25million on facebook ads, with a never ending train of A-list celebrities, produced by hollywood marketing experts, and directed by speilberg. The "russians" spent only 80k on a bunch of black and white cartoons. You tell me if advertising works.
      • So you are saying that advertising doesn't work?

        Generally, it does not.

        And that it's OK to target specific, susceptible people with false narratives and propaganda?

        Yes, that is okay.

        In fact, Obama's administration legalized and funded propaganda, and the funding period ended at the end of 2018. See all the online blog/vlog/"news" site layoffs at the end of 2018 through now.

        The fight (from either side) isn't over hard core believers, its about manipulating the undecided to swing your way.

        No it isn't. It's about accusing the other side of cheating even though you were cheating because you happened to lose even while cheating.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      "Yet another Republican denies election meddling benefited Republicans, news at 11!"

      • leftists still hyperventilating about OrangeManBad winning in 2016... its getting so. Damn. Old.

        "Yet another Republican denies election meddling benefited Republicans, news at 11!"

        Indeed, Republican denialism is getting so. Damn. Old!

  • What's weird is that Republicans could OWN this issue.

    They could bring in actual respected experts, real audit chains, live beyond all the basic expectations of process and accountability.

    But there's nothing like that. Just shutting down all proposals, and contracts with shady companies delivering known broken systems.

    Why would you play that role? But then - that's been the question all along, hasn't it - so, SO many cases of people hired where "you had ONE job" that they explicitly intend to fail at.

    I un

  • It's going to be fun watching people scramble to rationalize large-scale identity theft in the posts for this article.
    • You're not going to see people on slashdot cheering on Facebook's mass invasion of privacy to stuff billions of dollars into Zuckerberg's pocket. Not sure which sites you've been reading but this wasn't one of them. No one here likes Facebook or Zuckerberg. Without FB/Z, none of this would've happened in 2012 or with CA more recently.
  • Or maybe some parties lost because their candidates and/or policies were terrible.

    Hillary Clinton is the classic example of this. Seriously, she lost to Donald Trump. It's that's not a wake-up call, I don't know what is.

    I've seen a trend - and pretty much all parties, of whatever ideology, are guilty of this - of being completely out of touch with voters and being incapable - not merely unwilling, but truly incapable - of even considering that their lunatic fringe ideas might alienate the voters who would

    • > Hillary Clinton is the classic example of this. Seriously, she lost to Donald Trump. It's that's not a wake-up call, I don't know what is.

      I like the saying, "only Hillary Clinton could lose to Donald Trump and only Donald Trump could lose to Hillary Clinton."

      All the smart, earnest people have decided that politics is a soul-sucking death trap. Results are as expected as the Empire continues its collapse.

      "In a Democracy, the People get the government they deserve."

      cf. 13 years and illiterate/innumerate

    • I've seen a trend - and pretty much all parties, of whatever ideology, are guilty of this - of being completely out of touch with voters and being incapable - not merely unwilling, but truly incapable - of even considering that their lunatic fringe ideas might alienate the voters who would have really wanted to vote for them otherwise.

      Much of that is due to the mainstream media. You may have noticed that their coverage is so massively biased that it amounts to a major propaganda campaign. But their power

  • For 20 minutes and call it a day. On a related note I got my first non CNN recommendation on a YouTube feed in months for a news source.
  • Nothing will change as long as FB has no restrictions on the data it can collect, how it can use that data and can make money using the data.

    We may see another Congressional investigation and more public outrage, but nothing will change.

    • by jwymanm ( 627857 )
      Good. Nothing needs to change. It's called the Internet. Welcome to freedom. I know you hate that someone has freedom that differs from your idealism but that is how it works. End of story. Leave government out of the Internet.
  • by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @01:53PM (#59589356)
    In the Netflix documentary they show how her work with the Obama campaign in 2008, using Facebook, got millions of people to make micro-donations. This was then used to feed the news outlets on how beloved Obama was, as evidenced by all the people donating through Facebook links. And of course, the people donating were going to vote for him. So, the had data on who and what areas favored Obama. The sharing and liking of her astro-turf feeds showed how powerful Facebook was in an election. She next helped Texas US Senator Ted Cruz win Iowa's caucus in 2016, which he was not expected to win. Trump's team saw the writing on the wall and hired her. We all now what happened next when Trump's people received data on which Facebook users were on the fence and were prone to believe "news" feeds. Trump would win, and his people knew it because they convinced enough people on the fence to defeat the "evil" Hillary, as they portrayed her to be mean, a liar, and very unhealthy, prone to tripping and falling down.
    • because they convinced enough people on the fence to defeat the "evil" Hillary, as they portrayed her to be mean, a liar, and very unhealthy, prone to tripping and falling down.

      She was thought of that way long before, and I mean LONG BEFORE, Trump even announced his presidential run.

      The people on the left have always been out of touch about her image because within their own circles she was always, and I mean ALWAYS, praised.

      For fuck sakes Rush Limbaugh has portrayed both of the Clintons as being "mean" and "liars" since Bill was running for president. We are talking about the #1 political radio personality by the numbers. Hes been saying these very things since before 1992.

    • as they portrayed her to be mean, a liar, and very unhealthy, prone to tripping and falling down.

      Hillary portrayed herself that way.

    • they portrayed her to be [...] prone to tripping and falling down.

      LOL. The media treated Clinton's fall with kiddie gloves compared to the field day they had with Gerald Ford's fall [youtube.com]. It got to the point where voters associated Chevy Chase's portrayal of Ford (on Saturday Night Live) as the "real" Ford more than Ford himself.

      None of this is new. It's only spun as new and evil when the people already doing it run across someone else doing it in opposition to them.

    • Hillary was a horrible candidate. Why can't that just be the ultimate truth without blaming other people or groups of people? She continually tried to play her gender to garnish votes while also having an undeniable history of kowtowing at every chance to Wall Street bankers. Then there is the whole fiasco of her smashing up her hard drives from the server she kept in a bathroom ostensibly trying to obstruct justice.

      At the end of the day it was this laundry list of barnacles that cost her the election, not

  • by jader3rd ( 2222716 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @02:15PM (#59589420)
    The people being manipulated refuse to believe they are being manipulated. It's an affront to their minds. This is just going to show the powerful how to operate from here on out.
    • and the correlation si that the "powerful" who live in their twitter echo chambers and bubbles are also manipulated, but by themselves and their peers.

      When it comes down to voting, and the people fail to vote the way everytone in thew Westminster or Washington bubble have told themselves they'll vote, the last thing they can think of as the reason is that the people have their own minds. Instead they have to make up nonsense like Russian interference or Cambridge Analytica posting adverts as some bogeyman

  • The info is very scarce on facts. Not even a list of countries.

  • by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @02:50PM (#59589498)

    There’s already an entire industry devoted to mass voter manipulation. it’s called the news media.

    All of the mainstream media are nothing more than political operatives with press credentials and bylines.

  • Documentary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Schmo Schollie ( 6164562 ) on Sunday January 05, 2020 @03:29PM (#59589608)
    "The Great Hack" talks about this to a precise degree. Democracy is fucking dead. Last election was decided by 70,000 soft targets.

    Thank gerrymandering, the electoral college and weaponized datamining for setting up a voting system ripe for manipulation.

    Of course some moron is going to make this about left or right but really this is the integrity of democracy at stake.
    • You forgot voter suppression.
      • You mean requiring a valid ID to vote?

        • Its not the ID itself, it's the access to it. Closing driver's license offices in so many counties makes it difficult for poor people to obtain an ID to vote.

          Here's the targeted 37 counties (largely poor and/or black) in Alabama with NO driver license issuers offices at all.

          https://www.al.com/resizer/z_6... [al.com]

          How is it not voter suppression if someone poor and without a driver's license has to somehow transport themselves 400+ miles to get an ID? Sorry but that's horse shit no matter how you look at i
          • How is it not voter suppression if someone poor and without a driver's license has to somehow transport themselves 400+ miles to get an ID?

            400+ miles? Please tell me which county in Alabama is 400 miles wide. I'll bet you tell all the girls it's definitely at least 10 inches too. And for the record there is a mobile ID site that visits every county in Alabama at least once a month AND there are a lot of non-state issued IDs that are accepted. You're hyperbole and breathless indignation are unwarranted.

            • Except that mobile unit system underserves the population and was an appeasement measure.

              https://talkingpointsmemo.com/... [talkingpointsmemo.com]

              If you were observant enough to actually look at the map link I posted you would see the counties with no driver's license issuers. There are counties grouped together that create hundreds of miles of gaps in coverage.

              If you can't even click on a fucking link in the first place then I shall say good day sir.
              • Oh, I clicked. You're just wrong. Alabama has a width of 200 miles. From north to south, Alabama extends for 300 miles at its most extreme northern and southern points. http://worldpopulationreview.c... [worldpopul...review.com] So exactly where do people have to travel 400+ miles for an ID? Do they commute to Mississippi, Georgia or Tennessee?
          • by rastos1 ( 601318 )

            Closing driver's license offices in so many counties makes it difficult for poor people to obtain an ID to vote.

            As a non-American - that's ridiculous. Besides, are they closed also tomorrow?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • At the end of the day, it comes down to something really simple.... this would not even be an issue if Hillary had won. None of you people hyperventialting about it now would even be aware, or care. Putin would still be your friend, and Hillary would give him another shiny new reset button with an extra helping of flexibility until the next election.
  • But it turns out that Democrats don't win all the time anyway, even with this large factor in their favor.

    You can have whole counties in Florida fake all the ballots you want, well past the election deadline... but it turns out that is not actually enough to overcome the true will of the people.

  • We're still not voting for Hillary.

  • None of this will resolve itself until there's another massive human catastrophe. Probably a war.

    When the sociopaths in charge decide it's time to hit reset- it will be a nuclear reset.

    If we recover from that we will be better off. If not... poof we're gone.

  • So Jan 1 2020 we're already laying the ground work for explaining how Trump (will have) won again in November?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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