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Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Cambridge Analytica boasts of dirty tricks to swing elections
In one exchange, the company chief executive, Alexander Nix, pictured,
is recorded speaking of ‘things that don’t necessarily need to be true’.
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The company at the centre of the Facebook
data breach boasted of using honey traps, fake news campaigns and
operations with ex-spies to swing election campaigns around the world, a
new investigation reveals.
Executives from Cambridge Analytica
spoke to undercover reporters from Channel 4 News about the dark arts
used by the company to help clients, which included entrapping rival
candidates in fake bribery stings and hiring prostitutes to seduce them.
In one exchange, the company chief executive, Alexander Nix, is
recorded telling reporters: “It sounds a dreadful thing to say, but
these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true as long as
they’re believed.”
The Channel 4 News investigation, broadcast on Monday, comes two days
after the Observer reported Cambridge Analytica had unauthorised access
to tens of millions of Facebook profiles in one of the social media company’s biggest data breaches.
Nix worked as a financial analyst in Mexico and the UK before joining
SCL, a strategic communications firm in 2003. From 2007 he took over
the company’s elections division, and claims to have worked on more than 40 campaignsglobally.
Many of SCL’s projects are secret so that may be a low estimate. He set
up Cambridge Analytica to work in America, with investment from US
hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. He has been both hailed as a
visionary -- featuring on Wired’s list of “25 Geniuses who are creating the future of business” -- and derided as a snake oil salesman.
Controversies
Cambridge Analytica has come under scrutiny for its role in elections
on both sides of the Atlantic, working on Brexit and Donald Trump’s
election team. It is a key subject in two inquiries in the UK - by the
Electoral Commission, into the firm’s possible role in the EU referendum
and the Information Commissioner’s Office, into data analytics for
political purposes - and one in the US, as part of special counsel
Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump-Russia collusion. The Observer
revealed this week that the company had harvested millions of Facebook profiles
of US voters, in one of the tech giant’s biggest ever data breaches,
and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and
influence choices at the ballot box. The company, and Nix, are under pressure
from politicians in the US and the UK to explain how it handled the
data and what role the information played in its campaigns, if any.
Cambridge Analytica has sold itself
as the ultimate hi-tech consultant, winning votes by using data to
pinpoint target groups and design messages that will appeal powerfully
to their interests, although it denies using Facebook information in its
work.
But in the undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, in association
with the Observer, executives claimed to offer a much darker range of
services.
In a series of meetings with a reporter posing as a representative of
a wealthy Sri Lankan family seeking political influence, Cambridge
Analytica executives initially denied the company was in the business of
using entrapment techniques.
But Nix later detailed the dirty tricks the company would be prepared to pull behind the scenes to help its clients.
When the reporter asked if Cambridge Analytica could offer
investigations into the damaging secrets of rivals, Nix said it worked
with former spies from Britain and Israel to look for political dirt. He
also volunteered that his team were ready to go further than an
investigation.
“Oh, we do a lot more than that,” he said over dinner at an exclusive
hotel in London. “Deep digging is interesting, but you know equally
effective can be just to go and speak to the incumbents and to offer
them a deal that’s too good to be true and make sure that that’s video
recorded.
“You know these sort of tactics are very effective, instantly having video evidence of corruption.”
Nix suggested one possible scenario, in which the managing director
of Cambridge Analytica’s political division, Mark Turnbull, would pose
as a wealthy developer looking to exchange campaign finance for land.
“I’m a master of disguise,” Turnbull said.
Another option, Nix suggested, would be to create a sex scandal.
“Send some girls around to the candidate’s house, we have lots of
history of things,” he told the reporter. “We could bring some
Ukrainians in on holiday with us, you know what I’m saying.”
He said these were hypothetical scenarios, but suggested his ideas
were based on precedent. “Please don’t pay too much attention to what
I’m saying, because I’m just giving you examples of what can be done,
what has been done.”
Any work may have stayed out of the spotlight partly because
Cambridge Analytica works hard to cover traces of its operations, Nix
said, using a shifting network of names and front groups.
“We’re used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows,
and I look forward to building a very long-term and secretive
relationship with you,” Nix told the source in a first phone call.
Cambridge Analytica sometimes contracts under a different name, so
that there are no records of its involvement, Turnbull said. That does
not only protect the company, but also makes its work more efficient, he
is recorded saying.
“It has to happen without anyone thinking it’s propaganda, because
the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’ the next question is: ‘Who’s
put that out?’”
He added: “It may be that we have to contract under a different name
... a different entity, with a different name, so that no record exists
with our name attached to this at all.”
In a recent project in eastern Europe, the company sent a team but
“no one even knew they were there, they were just ghosted in, did the
work, ghosted out”, Turnbull said.
Covers include the setting up of fake academic projects, sometimes
simply going in on tourist visas, as former employees have told the
Guardian they did for US elections – apparently employed in violation of Federal law.
Nix also offered details regarding the services of professional
ex-spies from Britain and Israel. “We have two projects at the moment,
which involve doing deep deep depth research on the opposition and
providing source ... really damaging source material, that we can decide
how to deploy in the course of the campaign.”
Cambridge Analytica said the Channel 4 News investigation
contained false claims, factual inaccuracies and substantial
mischaracterisations.
It accused Channel 4 of setting out to entrap staff by initiating a
conversation about unethical practices. It rejected any suggestion that
the company used fake news, honey traps, bribes or entrapment.
It said: “We entirely refute any allegation that Cambridge Anlytica
or any of its affiliates use entrapment, bribes or so-called
‘honey-traps’ for any purpose whatsoever … Cambridge Analytica does not
use untrue material for any purpose.”
Of the suggestions they used honey trap techniques, the company said:
“Our executives humoured these questions and actively encouraged the
prospective client to further disclose his intentions.”
On Saturday, Cambridge Analytica denied it had done anything wrong in relation to the handling of Facebook data.
“Cambridge Analytica only receives and uses data that has been
obtained legally and fairly. Our robust data protection policies comply
with US, international, European Union, and national regulations,” it
said.
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