Cambridge Analytica in South America and India
Blogging a dead horse
“For crying out loud man, are you still banging on about that bloody Cambridge Analytica thing? Who the hell cares?”
Hi readers, yes, yes I am. Oh, by the way it’s me I am the one who cares about it. The main reason is that I keep seeing the same patterns emerging again and again. Essentially peoples data is taken and examined in order to cater specific advertising campaigns at individuals designed to get them angry at an issue (often not real or exaggerated to wicked degrees). Using alternative media sources they also spread these lies in order to influence beliefs, behaviours and voting patterns. This is by very definition a mind control program and by the looks of it a surprisingly successful one firstly because it is so catered towards individual psychology and secondly because people are reluctant to believe they are being manipulated. Now here’s the kicker that really gets my bloody goat, it is disguised as an organic popularist or nationalist uprising of the disenfranchised working classes when in fact it is manipulated by the elites and industrialists for their own benefit. These elites include the Mercers, The Rosenwalds, The Kochs, The Regnerys, The Shilmans, the Wilks and the Devos family among others. By sheer coincidence they finance not only Cambridge Analytica and the media outlets used to promote such anger making stories but also benefit from the political actions taken after each manipulated vote or propaganda campaign. They have tapped into the anger of the people, leveraged a fake enemy for them to fight against and will ultimately reap the rewards themselves.
Furthermore Cambridge Analytica has a list X clearance with the UK Government meaning it can hold and view any intelligence document classified as secret or higher. The methodology of the company is considered a psychological weapon and is deemed so powerful that it is under export control from the UK Government. What that means is someone has to check before it is used.
To me that flies more red flags than a Chinese military parade.
So that means that all the campaigns supported by Cambridge Analytica (including Brexit, Trump, Wilders, Le Pen, Salvini and others) was desired by elements of the UK Government and the US intelligence agencies. You may have had good reason to vote for Trump, for example, but he was the approved candidate of elements of the UK Government that have access to powerful psychological weapons and the ability to deploy them – and I don’t trust those kinds of people.
SCL, the parent company behind Cambridge Analytica proudly boasts of effecting the outcomes of elections in the US, UK, Argentina, Colombia, Guyana, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, St Kitts & Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Cyprus, Nigeria, Gabon, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Romania, Italy, Moldova, Albania, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Mauritius.
Getting a Brazilian
In October 2018 Facebook in Brazil responded to a familiar complaint, or at least familiar if you have been reading these blogs (If you haven’t please read the previous posts for background and context).
Al Jazeera reported “Election officials in Brazil are battling misinformation on social media as the country nears the end of its most polarising presidential campaign in decades. Last week, Facebook was made to remove dozens of links to false stories - most of them targeting the leftist presidential candidate Fernando Haddad.”
At that time the far right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, described by some as a mixture of Donald Trump and Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, was enjoying a ten point lead in the polls. Unusually he had avoided television (his brand of politics seen as too far right even for the famously conservative Brazilian TV networks) in favour of social media such as Facebook and Whatsapp.
As Al Jazeera stated; "It's no accident that he (Bolsonaro) is leading in the polls," according to Gisele Federicce, editor of Brasil 247. "He's not the frontrunner by chance. He's a candidate who's very strong on Whatsapp, on social media. People get a lot of feeds, lots of videos from Bolsonaro." Brazilians aren't merely on social media. They are, to an unusual degree, involved. The Facebook numbers there are through the roof. And when polled recently on whether they had used social media as a source of news over the past week, two out of three Brazilians - 66 percent - said yes. That's more than twice as high as Germany, almost 50 percent higher than the US.”
Bolsonaro won the election in October after campaigning on a promise to crush corruption, crime and a supposed communist threat. The 63-year-old former paratrooper began his tenure by stating “We cannot continue flirting with communism … We are going to change the destiny of Brazil,”
(Honestly what is with this recent spate of reds under the beds bollocks?)
The campaign appealed to the feelings of his supporters and had a disregard for facts – this is another familiar tactic.
Brazil nuts?
So what is this Bolsonaro like then? Is he a sensible, happy go lucky, live and let live kind of guy? Well let’s have a look at some of this charmers best lines:
In 2014 he told a female congress woman, "I wouldn't rape you because you don't deserve it." And later clarified his point in an interview stating of the woman’s appearance, "not worth raping; she is very ugly." This shows that at best he has catastrophic misunderstanding of normal human interactions and the concept of punishment and reward or more likely, that he is a complete and total wanker. He later stated, "I've got five kids but on the fifth I had a moment of weakness and it came out a woman.” – having a foundation in psychology I would suggest that is almost the perfect methodology for nurturing highly disturbing and probably self destructive Father issues in a young girl.
In 2011 he said, "I would be incapable of loving a homosexual son." Bolsonaro went onto add he would rather his son "died in an accident than showed up with some bloke with a moustache." So at least he is an equal opportunity bigot.
But it’s just distasteful Jim Davidson style utterances that are of concern, Bolsonaro is also quite clearly a couple of beans short of a cup of coffee. As early as 1999 he publically stated, "I am in favour of torture, you know that. And the people are in favour as well." The same year he said on TV, "Elections won't change anything in this country. It will only change on the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn't do: killing 30,000. If some innocent people die, that's fine. In every war, innocent people die."
Throughout his political career, Bolsonaro has made a number of positive comments about the U.S.-supported Brazilian military dictatorship which ruled the country from 1964 to 1985. He said in 1993, eight years after the return of democracy, that the military regime had "led to a more sustainable and prosperous Brazil". Bolsonaro has publicly referred to the military dictatorship as a "glorious" period in Brazil's history and that under the military dictatorship, Brazil enjoyed "20 years of order and progress". In December 2008, Bolsonaro said that "the error of the dictatorship was that it tortured, but did not kill".
He has already started to roll back the already thin environmental protections against the Brazilian rainforest stating that he is more interested in profits than preservation – so it’s likely he is in the pocket of big business.
So yeah, he’s a total fruitcake.
Following his election Donald Trump called Bolsonaro to congratulate him and both men expressed a strong commitment to work together, the White House said.
Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, offered his congratulations to Bolsonaro, tweeting: “Even in #Brazil the citizens have sent the left packing!” The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen also sent a message of encouragement.
I like big bots and I cannot lie
The use of bots/ sock puppet accounts has become an increasing concern in Brazil due to the large usage of social media, particularly in its use by many as their primary (and often sole) source of news and opinion. Bots or sock puppet accounts mimic real life interactions and give the appearance of being a real person, talking to you about the issues that concern you. In reality this is a sophisticated marketing campaign to indoctrinate an audience with a specific ideology, usually instigated by inciting fear or anger in the social media user.
From the Wilsoncentre.org; “In recent years, bots have been active and influential during important political moments in Brazil. One notable example occurred during the second-round presidential debate in 2014. An analysis by the Federal University of Espírito Santo found evidence of bot activity when, within the first fifteen minutes of the debate, Twitter mentions of then-candidate Aècio Neves experienced an inorganic increase, tripling in number. Further evidence came from a 2017 study by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s Department of Public Policy Analysis (FGV/DAPP), which reported that over 10 percent of all relevant Twitter interactions during the debate involved suspicious accounts. These accounts—which were obviously automated—created one post per second, if not more.
n analyzing the 2014 debate, as well as other notable events such as the 2015 impeachment protests and the 2016 São Paulo elections, the FGV study discovered an important underlying pattern. During each event, bot activity concentrated at the extremes of the political spectrum, with most bots rapidly posting content in order to inflate the appearance of support for a given candidate or point of view.
This specific pattern of bot activity has serious implications for the integrity of past, present, and future Brazilian elections, and constitutes what FGV/DAPP director Marco Aurelio Ruediger describes as a “threat to the quality of public debate in Brazil.” By inflating the visibility of extreme candidates and ideologies on a large scale, bots can exacerbate the already-ongoing phenomenon of political polarization, which in turn can lead to a distorted and excessively contentious election.”
Bots can also have the effect of spreading misinformation at an alarming rate. An example is given by the Wilsoncenter.org: “During the recent truckers strike, false information about supposed food shortages spread within thousands of WhatsApp groups. As the strike was ongoing, journalists from the Correio Braziliense participated in trucker-led WhatsApp groups and reportedly received messages advertising the sale of social media bot accounts—with the express purpose of spreading false information.
The spread of misinformation halted shortly after the strike ended. In the context of an election, however, fake news could have a much more permanent effect. Because fake news disseminated by bots can spread at the same rate as legitimate news, voters find themselves inundated with information, often unable to differentiate between truth and fiction. The resulting confusion could compromise voters’ capacity to make an informed decision.”
However this tactic will be more than familiar with readers of this blog (if not please read the earlier parts specifically parts one and two in relation to this) who may remember stories of sweeping Sharia law in Nigeria and Kenya, capitulation to Islam and the allowance of child brides in Germany and unchecked rapes in Sweden, all of which were untrue and purposefully spread by Cambridge Analytica (the psy-ops firm that ran the Brexit and Trump campaigns). Not to mention Hilary Clintons dozen or so strokes brought on by furious ingestion of human flesh, which was also doing the rounds on social media and in chat rooms.
Where these bots come from and who it is that creates the stories that they spread is a big question. As an emergent tactic in the sphere of perception management and population manipulation it is likely that all sides of the political spectrum are turning their hands to these methods, some with more success than others, possibly due to outside influence from experts in the field.
An internal Brazilian government report that was leaked in 2015 showed that both main candidates had used bots to disseminate positive information about their candidates as a promotional tool.
“A 2017 study by FGV also showed evidence of a connection between bots and presidential campaigns in Brazil. The study found that, although the number of bots posting politically charged content numbered in the hundreds, most of the content originated from just a few websites. Many of these websites’ domains were owned either by companies who received payments from official campaigns or by the official campaigns themselves.
In addition, the study drew possible connections between bot activity in Brazil and foreign actors. The study found that some of the bots that were allegedly connected with the Neves campaign displayed evidence of foreign origin”
The recent election was also plagued by this problem; “In 2018, bots have already been active in the months leading up to the election. A study conducted by FGV/DAPP between June 22 and 23 found that more than 20 percent of the re-tweets related to Lula or Jair Bolsonaro, the two candidates with the most social media presence, were performed by bots.”
Wouldn’t it be strange if our old friends Cambridge Analytica were somehow involved in this?
Well by sheer coincidence, I am sure, they arrived in Brazil just in time to add their particular brand of skills to Brazilian politics. As reported in 2017 by Folha De S. Paulo;
“Of the many controversial aspects surrounding Trump's presidential campaign, at least one has been exported to Brazil and will most likely be a part of the 2018 election.
Cambridge Analytica is a pioneering company that merges behavioral psychology with big data for political campaigns. The company arrived back in March and has been operating ever since.
The company emerged as a partner to British consulting firm SCL. In order to operate in Brazil the company teamed up with Ponte Estratégia, a targeted marketing company, leading to the creation of CA-Ponte.
The conservative trend in the company's client portfolio is no coincidence. One of the main investors behind Cambridge Analytica is billionaire Robert Mercer, who is also a Republican donor.
Trump's former chief-strategist, Steve Bannon, who served in his administration until August, was also on the administrative board of Cambridge Analytica.
The company's clients in Brazil will probably not follow as clear an ideological trend. According to the president of the local office, André Torretta, the company is open to working with a wider political spectrum, whether on the left or on the right.
The only candidates who will be considered off limits are extremist ones. Mr. Torretta substantiated this position by mentioning a family member of his who was tortured during the military dictatorship.
The company concentrates on paid campaign ads on social media, a modality of political advertising that had been outlawed until October of this year, when President Michel Temer sanctioned a political reform bill that made it legal.
Such campaigns allow candidates to boost posts, meaning they can purchase increased ad exposure, targeting users who fit a specific profile”
Steve Bannon has stated that the rise of nationalism and popularism across the globe will help his proposed far right think tank, the Movement. It suddenly struck me that that is a euphemism for defecation, which is apt for someone like Bannon who is totally full of shit.
The boys from Brazil
The article states that Cambridge Analytica arrived in Brazil in March 2017, by the following March their practices were being investigated and partners rushing to disavow any knowledge of the companies methodology. It appears that (in a totally uncharacteristic turn of events) the majority of the data harvested from Facebook and other social media outlets in order to best manipulate the targets of their campaigns was probably acquired illegally.
In the secret recordings made by Channel 4 in the UK executives from Cambridge Analytica were overheard discussing “going to Brazil” This was filmed in November 2017 but came to light in March 2018 when everything started to unravel for Cambridge Analytica, at least on the surface.
Alex Taylor, head of the global arm of Cambridge Analytica stated; “If you’re collecting data on people and you’re profiling them, that gives you more insight that you can use to know how to segment the population, give them messaging about issues they care about, and language and imagery they’re likely to engage with. We use that in America and we use that in Africa, that’s what we do as a company.”
Mark Turnbull added: “We’ve done it in Mexico, we’ve done it in Malaysia, and now we’re moving to Brazil … Australia, China.”
In March 2018 Reuters reported; “Brazilian prosecutors on Wednesday said they had opened an investigation into whether London-based political consultancy Cambridge Analytica acted illegally in Brazil, as controversy over the firm’s data harvesting practices spreads across the globe.
Prosecutors for Brazil’s Federal District, which includes Brasilia, the capital, said in a written statement that they will look into whether the firm, through its partnership with Sao Paulo-based consulting group A Ponte Estratégia Planejamento e Pesquisa LTDA, illegally used the data of millions of Brazilians to create psychographic profiles.
Prosecutors from a specialized data unit will look into whether there were security breaches that allowed the firm to illegally access personal data.”
Bloomberg reported; “Ponte Estrategia, the Brazilian partner of data research firm Cambridge Analytica, has asked to suspend its agreement with the London-based company less than seven months before the South American nation goes to the polls. Andre Torretta, the head of the Brazilian firm, emailed Cambridge Analytica with the request after reports that data from 50 million Facebook users were allegedly harvested without permission by the company. Torretta said by phone he hasn’t heard back yet.”
Associated Press reported; “Federal prosecutors in Latin America’s biggest country announced Thursday that they are investigating to determine if Cambridge Analytica illegally used the profiles of millions of Brazilian Facebook users.
Prosecutors the investigation was prompted by reports that the London-based political consulting firm had access to the personal information of 50 million Facebook users in the United States and could create voter personality profiles.
They said in a statement they want to find out if Cambridge Analytica, in partnership with local consultancy A Ponte Estrategia Planejamento e Pesquisa, also did the same thing in Brazil before the country’s October elections.
Prosecutors said the partnership between both consulting firms began in 2017.
The Brazilian company said in a statement that it was never involved in the creation of such profiles and ended its relationship with Cambridge Analytica earlier this month.
“We are investigating if Cambridge Analytica is illegally using the personal data of millions of Brazilians to construct psychographic profiles to determine political and religious beliefs, sexual orientation, skin color, and political behaviour,” the prosecutors’ statement said. “It is clear that the company’s focus is to use this data to change people’s behaviour.”
According to Statista, a Hamburg, Germany-based data and statistical company, Brazil has the world’s third largest number of Facebook users as of January 2018. With 130 million Facebook users, Brazil comes behind India with 250 million and the United States with 230 million.”
On 1 May 2018, Cambridge Analytica and its parent company filed for insolvency proceedings and closed operations. Alexander Taylor, a former director for Cambridge Analytica, was appointed director of Emerdata on 28 March 2018. Emerdata also employed all the then available staff from Cambridge Analytica and began doing the exact same thing, all under the expressed understanding that this was a completely different entity and therefore should be allowed to proceed without being bothered by pesky investigations into legality and other piffling matters. Other offshoot companies included Firecrest Technologies Private Limited, Frontier Services Group, Citic Group (formerly China International Trust Investment Corporation, a state-owned investment company of People’s Republic of China) and Fanalytica Private Limited.
This was shown in an article for transparencytoolkit.org; “According to public records from Britain’s Companies House, Emerdata’s board of directors include Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer, daughters of the hedge-fund billionaire and primary Cambridge Analytica investor Robert Mercer. What is surprising is that between August 2017 and 28th February 2018, there were no operations whatsoever. Like all other companies in England it is registered on the Government’s website where it has listed its business objective as “data processing, hosting and related activities”. In reality, they began their activities only from 1st March 2018.
Following details makes it even more clear that all the 4 companies are that of Cambridge Analytica.
Bankrolling for Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group was done by the father of Rebecca Mercer & Jennifer Mercer. These two have also been appointed as Directors of the 1 year old Emerdata from 16th March 2018. Similarly, Julian David Wheatland, who was the Chairman of Cambridge Analytica, has a 25-50% shareholding in Emerdata and is also a Director since 11th August 2017. Current CEO Dr Alexandar Bruce Taylor also assumed charge as Director from 28th March 2018 with a shareholding of 25-50%. More famous personality Ex-CEO of Cambridge Analytica Alexander Nix is also a Director in Emerdata since 23rd January 2018. However, since Alexander Nix was sacked from Cambridge Analytica, he also got sacked from Emerdata.
The fun begins here – Nix was sacked publicly, but there exists a group company of Emerdata by name Firecrest Techonolgies Pvt Limited. The sole director of that firm is Alexander Nix, who holds this position since 7th March 2018. Firecrest Technologies was established on the same day, 7th March 2018. Firecrest Technologies is in such proximity that you can peep through any window of Emerdata Building to find it. The unique registration number for Firecrest is 11238956. You can thus conclude that the core team of Cambridge Analytica: Rebecca Mercer, Jennifer Mercer, Julian David Wheatland, Dr Alexander Bruce Taylor – those who sacked Alexander Nix from the company – all work under Alexander Nix in Firecrest – Pirates of the same ship.
Not only that, the other Directors of Emerdata, Ahmad Al Khatib, Cheng Peng, Johnson Chun Shun Ko have joined the company on 23rd January 2018. Among these Chun Shun Ko is the Executive Director and Vice President of Frontier Services Group. This company operates in the Data related domain as well, and is owned by CITIC group. CITIC being a company of Chinese origin, was also working secretly with Cambridge Analytica. After Cambridge Analytica, it now works for Emerdata and Firecrest.”
In March 2018 Cambridge Analytica quietly shut down its Australian office too. The office had shared premises with the parent company SCL since 2015.
So were Cambridge Analytica involved in the election of the man known as the Brazilian Trump, the man with similar ideas about the world and similar political backers, the man whose campaign relied on the very same tried and tested tactics employed to promote Trump. Well not officially, but it seems pretty bloody likely. Bolsonaro and those close to him have also paid great attention to comparing themselves to figures such as Le Pen, Geert Wilders and Donald Trump, all of whom were helped or promoted by Cambridge Analytica or connected media outlets such as Breitbart and Gatestone Media.
Just to remind people of exactly what Cambridge Analytica did, the company would collect data on voters using sources such as demographics, consumer behaviour, internet activity, and other public and private sources. It would appear that they also stole private data.
The company claimed to use "data enhancement and audience segmentation techniques" providing "psychographic analysis" for a "deeper knowledge of the target audience". Using what it calls "behavioural microtargeting" the company indicates that it can predict "needs" of subjects and how these needs may change over time. Services then can be individually targeted for the benefit of its clients from the political arena, governments, and companies providing "a better and more actionable view of their key audiences." According to employees of the company Cambridge Analytica’s analysis is so detailed that it can tell things about an individual they might not even know about them self.
Cambridge Analytica harvested much of its personal data from online surveys which are ongoing and track the user’s stance on certain issues. The data would get updated with monthly surveys, asking about the user’s political preferences, likes, dislikes and how people get the information they use to make decisions.
Bloody hell! It’s Steve Bannon
Another connection is the grease smeared figure of Steve Bannon, the pioneering fashonista determined to get everyone wearing two shirts at once, whose brave sartorial experiments are often maligned in favour of discussion of his decidedly unpleasant far right views and connections to Cambridge Analytica, Breitbart and Robert Mercer (please read the previous blogs).
From Quartz Magazine: “Mercer, whose net worth is unknown, was Donald Trump’s biggest donor ahead of the 2016 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Along with his wife Diana, Mercer gave a total of $15.5 million, of which that vast majority went to a super PAC to support Trump called Make America Number 1. Originally a computer scientist, Mercer earned most of his money at the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, which takes an almost entirely quantitative approach to their investing. Along with donating to Trump, Mercer was an early investor in Breitbart News, an outlet supportive of Trump’s anti-immigration, nationalist agenda. The Mercers also started Cambridge Analytica, a data-focused political consultancy that worked for the Trump campaign. (Cambridge Analytica illegally harvested data on 50 million Facebook users and has since shut down.) Add it all up and Mercer has been uniquely important to Trump’s ascent.”
As reported by the Guardian in October 2018; “Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has taken a starring role in Brazil’s increasingly antagonistic presidential election, with opponents of Jair Bolsonaro flagging up the far-right frontrunner’s links to the “democracy-sabotaging” North American nationalist.
A campaign advert for Bolsonaro’s leftwing rival, Fernando Haddad, that was released on Tuesday night highlighted the ties between the Trump-praising Brazilian populist and the man Time magazine has called “The Great Manipulator”.
“Do you really know who Bolsonaro is? Do you know who supports him?” a narrator asks viewers before responding: “Steve Bannon.
“Steve Bannon is accused of sabotaging democratic regimes around the world. He uses fake news to spread fear and violence to win elections,” the narrator continues. “Bannon is a specialist in spreading terror around the world. Bolsonaro has spent the last 30 years doing this in Brazil.”
Bolsonaro claimed to have had no contact or influence from Bannon but this was brought into question when pictures emerged from Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo’s, Instagram account showing him stood in a New York apartment with none other than Steve Bannon.
Dated August of 2018, Eduardo wrote in the post; “Today I had the pleasure of meeting Steve Bannon. We had a great conversation and we share the same worldview. Mr Bannon stated that he was an enthusiast for Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign and we will certainly be in contact to join forces, above all against cultural marxism.”
In a subsequent interview with the Brazilian magazine Época, Eduardo Bolsonaro claimed the former Breitbart News chief had “said he was open to helping” his father’s campaign. “This, obviously, doesn’t include anything financial. We made this very clear, on both sides. The support involves internet tips, perhaps an analysis, interpreting data, this kind of thing,”
Currying favour in India?
It is alleged that Cambridge Analytica received more than RS 800 crores from the Congress party to make them victorious in 2018 Karnataka Elections and 2019 General Elections in India. It was reported in the Guardian in July 2018; “India’s federal investigating agency will determine whether personal data from Indian voters and Facebook users was compromised by the political consultant company Cambridge Analytica.
The minister of electronics and information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said the Central Bureau of Investigation would look at whether the British company violated Indian laws.
Prasad said in parliament on Thursday that the company denied to the Indian government that data from Indian people was breached, but that contradicted information received from Facebook.
The governing Bharatiya Janata party and the opposition Congress party have accused each other of using Cambridge Analytica’s services, but both have denied any link to it.
Christopher Wylie, who used to work for Cambridge Analytica told the British enquiry into Cambridge Analytica that the company did work in India and that the Congress party was a client. Wylie stated, “I believe their client was Congress but I know that they have done all kinds of projects. I don’t remember a national project but I know regionally. India is so big that one state can be as big as Britain.” Wylie also went on to say that Cambridge Analytica had offices and employed staff in India. Wylie’s predecessor, Dan Muresan whose job title was Head of Elections at SCL Group, was working in India just before his untimely death in 2014. He was poisoned in a hotel room in Nigeria during another Cambridge Analytica campaign. It was rumoured that he was taking money from an unnamed Indian billionaire who wanted Congress to lose. Muresan apparently took the money but continued to work for Congress. It has been suggested that this enraged his client enough to pursue extreme retribution.
The BBC also reported on a familiar problem; “A rising tide of nationalism in India is driving ordinary citizens to spread fake news, according to BBC research. The research found that facts were less important to some than the emotional desire to bolster national identity. Social media analysis suggested that right-wing networks are much more organised than on the left, pushing nationalistic fake stories further. There was also an overlap of fake news sources on Twitter and support networks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
Don’t spy for me Argentina
During the investigation into the practices of Cambridge Analytica the UK Government also discussed work the company had performed in Argentina. This is particularly interesting when you realise the Government was, at the same time, using JTRIG – the GCHQ internet program to spread fake stories in a remarkably similar fashion to Cambridge Analytica, although their focus was on encouraging pro British sentiment for the Falkland isles. The Committee saw confidential evidence—a summary of a management meeting at SCL Group from 27 May 2015—in relation to an anti-Kirchner campaign in Argentina, describing “close proximity intelligence gathering efforts” and “information warfare”, and the use of “retired Intelligence and Security agency officers from Israel, USA, UK, Spain, and Russia”, and the creation of false Facebook and Twitter accounts to support the anti-Kirchner campaign. When questioned whether SCL Group had worked for an opposition party, or some other person interested in influencing politics in Argentina, against the Government, Alexander Nix replied, “That would be the appearance of that, yes.”
I happened to be curious why Cambridge Analytica might be opposed to Kirchner’s Presidency in Argentina and it didn’t take me long to discover things about her that allowed me to formulate a theory.
“Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner is an Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina from 2007 to 2015. She was the second woman to serve as President of Argentina, the first directly elected female president and the first woman re-elected to the office. Ideologically a Peronist and social democrat, she was a member of the Justicialist Party, with her political approach being characterised as Kirchnerist, a form of left-wing populism.”
She was replaced by the right wing Mauricio Macri who was considered a darling of Wall Street and foreign elites. His popularity waned since he announced plans to borrow $50billion for Argentina from the IMF following the failure of his economic strategy.
So where does that leave us?
There is a company called Cambridge Analytica that bypasses democracy and covertly influences elections all over the globe with the combination of social media, fake news and military psychological warfare tactics, specifically creating artificial enemies to rally against.
They have connections to the MOD, British Military Intelligence, Mi5, Mi6, The US State Department and the British establishment. The tactics used by SCL are considered a weapon and are under export control by the British Government. Black Cube, an offshoot of Cambridge Analytica is a weapon of the Israeli Government and is under export control from the Israeli Defence Ministry.
They use tactics alarmingly similar to established GCHQ programs like JTRIG and US Military and Intelligence operations designed to influence behaviour via social media and affect mood.
They are owned and or financed by mysterious far right billionaires and millionaires that have a white supremacist ideology. They also finance several arms of alternative media and appear to be trying to normalise far right propaganda by spreading it through the alternative media.
Cambridge Analytica was also responsible for the election of Hungary’s Viktor Orban – who is the main proponent of the idea that George Soros is to blame for the refugee crisis – this turned out to be admitted Cambridge Analytica/Black Cube psychological warfare.
Cambridge Analytica financier, Steve Bannon, is attempting to spread far right popularism across Europe via various different political parties.
They installed a right wing government in India, Brazil, Argentina, America and are connected to the promotion of other right wing figures across the world including Nigel Farage, Geert Wilders, Marian Le Pen etc
Cambridge Analytica is also connected to various data mining, private security firms and monitoring companies that are part of the ever expanding total information control grid.
- https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2018/10/social-media-battleground-brazil-election-181006112106125.html
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/brazil-election-officials-battle-fake-news-social-media-181026162115068.html
- https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/bots-brazil-the-activity-social-media-bots-brazilian-elections
- https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2017/12/1941041-company-that-ran-trumps-campaign-has-arrived-in-brazil.shtml
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-21/cambridge-analytica-s-brazil-partner-suspends-deal-amid-scandal
- https://transparencytoolkit.org/DataPolitics/documents/indiafacts.org-cambridge-analytica-is-dead-so-what-emerdata-enough-to-break-india-.html
- https://www.apnews.com/008f45e8cc69455fa3e744ff2d85b719
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/29/brazil-election-far-right-democracy-social-media
- https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/363/36309.htm
- https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/20/cambridge-analytica-in-australia-deregisters-business-name
- https://qz.com/1239762/cambridge-analytica-scandal-all-the-countries-where-scl-elections-claims-to-have-worked/