WEBVTT - The Cambridge Analytica Scandal 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.720 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.280 I'm your host, John in Strickland. I'm an executive producer 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.840 with how Stuff Works in a love all things tech, 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.279 and we're continuing our story about Cambridge and Alytica, and 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:28.960 also continuing Jonathan's slow descent towards laryngitis. I'm all right 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.000 at the moment. I got my cup of water with me, 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.559 but I am recording this immediately after recording the previous 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:38.000 two episodes of tech Stuff, So if I start getting 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.920 particularly raspy, I apologize, but it's because my health is 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.160 slowly failing. In our last episode, I talked about how 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:51.519 two old Etonian's, first Nigel Oaks and later Alexander Nicks, 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.880 formed a company that depended heavily on psychological information of 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:00.360 questionable utility to form a consulting company that would take 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.880 that data and create action items for clients. They focused 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.560 mainly on political clients, with Nix's push to focus more 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:13.400 exclusively on elections, and I ended just as the organization 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.319 they created, Strategic Communication Laboratories or SCL, had spun off, 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:23.759 a new entity backed by American billionaires and This new 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:29.120 entity was called Cambridge Analytica. That entity incorporated in Delaware 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.080 on December thirty one, two thousand thirteen, so the very 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.680 last day of two thousand thirteen. Before incorporating, NIX had 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.479 led a few attempts to get cozy with American politics, 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:45.520 but things had not really gone well. The Republican candidate 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:50.360 for governor of Virginia was Ken Cucinelli, and a political 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:55.080 action committee supporting Cucinelli had hired SCL. Now remember this 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.320 was this was before Cambridge Analytica had become an official thing. 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.720 S c L was to post to create a list 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:07.000 of voters who could be persuaded to support Cucinelli. That 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:11.040 was what they were contracted to do. But the deadline 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:16.120 came and went and still no list, and eventually the 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:20.120 political action committee, the pack cut ties with the firm, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.160 saying well, you're not delivering upon your promise, so we're 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.880 not gonna do business anymore. But s c L had 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:30.919 also worked with another PACK in Virginia, also supporting Cucinelli. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.680 This one was called the Americans for Limited Government and 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.120 they wanted SCL to provide the group with a list 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:41.760 of women voters from suburban areas who traditionally would vote Democrat, 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:46.840 but who were thought to possibly flip Republican. So s 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.520 c L eventually produced a list of women and handed 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.240 it over, But upon closer inspection it turned out that 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.119 this was a list of Republican supporters, not flippable Democrats. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.839 So in other words, those people that already were kind 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:05.440 of promising to vote that way. So s c L 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.160 and Knicks had not performed very well in two thousand thirteen, 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.639 And if the mercers had learned about that, the billionaires 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:17.040 who had backed decided to help form Cambridge Analytica, maybe 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.200 they wouldn't have funded the founding of Cambridge an Analytica 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.160 if they had known about those failures. Steve Bannon became 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:28.600 a driving force behind the scenes at Cambridge Analytica. He's 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.680 was the executive over at Bright Barton News at the time. 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.480 According to Chris Wiley, that's the data analyst who had 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.480 UH first come on board in order to look into 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:46.200 using data from various sources to support sc l's efforts, 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:51.040 and was the one to recommend going towards using social 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:56.120 media and apps similar to the one that that Stillwell 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.000 had created back over at the University of Cambridge. UH 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:06.640 He said that Bannon was really interested in using social 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.680 media and messaging as a way to wage psychological warfare 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:15.040 to push a particular political philosophy. And in fact, to 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.440 quote Wiley, he said, Cambrage Analytica was quote Bannon's arsenal 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.200 of weaponry to wage a culture war on America using 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:27.960 military strategies end quote. He said, Bannon was absolutely fascinated 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:33.159 with the idea of using military tactics to wage a 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:38.560 political war in in a campaign. The mercers meanwhile, use 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:42.240 their leverage as wealthy go op backers to convince many 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.800 different campaigns to actually go ahead and make use of 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:51.400 Cambridge Analytica. So, out of the eight federal level clients 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.480 that Cambridge Analytica one in two thousand thirteen and two 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.240 thousand and fourteen, the clients they landed out of all 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.040 eight of them, all eight where received being financial backing 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.360 from the mercers. So how about that. So, for example, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.640 in two thousand fourteen, Robert Mercer donated one million dollars 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:12.600 to John Bolton's Superpack, and then that same superpack went 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.000 and hired Cambridge Analytica for consulting work to the tune 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:21.280 of three dollars. Kind of odd they reviews of the 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:25.920 work that Cambridge an Altica were returning. The reviews were 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:30.400 not great, they weren't spectacular. Apart from one U S 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.760 Senate race in North Carolina, that one was pretty positive 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.640 about Cambridge an Analytica, but a lot of other reports 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.560 were saying they aren't really delivering upon what they promised, 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.040 but the hype continued. Nix was really really good at 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.279 selling an idea. Never mind that the idea did not 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.480 really have a lot of solid foundation in academic scholarship 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:56.320 or published scientific research, or or even proof that their 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.240 efforts were effective in the field. He was still really 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.040 selling it, and the company in began to test certain 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.920 messages that would later show up in a future campaign. Now, 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.719 this was during the mid term elections often, and the 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:17.160 messages that they were testing out in different regions appeared 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:21.520 to be firmly rooted in Steve Bannon's philosophy. So these 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.000 this is when we started seeing phrases like build a 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.120 wall or drain the swamp. They're being tested at that 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.600 time in fourteen among different Republican populations, messages that were 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.560 critical of immigrants and ones that criticized big government would 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.640 roll into rotation and test out, and the company also 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.320 began testing the waters to see what the general opinion 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.400 among Republican voters was about a certain Vladimir Putin, the 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.280 President of Russia. And this was all during those mid 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:53.960 terms of fourteen years before they would be used in 0:06:54.279 --> 0:07:00.480 greater rollouts in twenty. In two thousand fifteen, Ted Ru's 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:04.560 announced his candidacy for president, although that announcement did not 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:09.720 go as planned. Uh So, his campaign, before they had 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.240 announced that it was a campaign, had secured the services 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:17.880 of Cambridge Analytica to design the campaign website, the official 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:21.600 website for Ted Cruz running for president. It did not 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.920 start off great. So Ted Cruz sends out a tweet 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:30.640 before midnight, uh the day before he's going to announce 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.480 his candidacy, and it's a very teasing tweet. Everyone knew 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:38.360 what it really meant because there were there's no shortage 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.080 of uh pundits out there saying Ted Cruz was going 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.400 to put his name in the ring for president, but 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.400 the official announcement had not yet happened, and he said, 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.280 just wait, it's gonna come really soon. And what was 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.360 supposed to happen was one minute after midnight, the official 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.840 campaign website was supposed to launch, but his team couldn't 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.400 get the website to park. They couldn't get it live. 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.800 Once again, a product from Cambridge Analytica was not performing 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:12.559 the way people expected. So several minutes after midnight, crews 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.880 would announce his candidacy on Twitter. So so didn't get 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:20.280 to share the link to the official campaign website. It 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.760 was not live yet. He just went ahead and announced 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:28.280 on Twitter because the plan was not going according to plan. Uh. 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.640 Initially a dozen Cambridge Analytica employees were on the staff 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:38.319 with the Cruise campaign, but apparently the company consistently failed 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.080 to deliver results and so that number was whittled down 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:47.120 to three. As the campaign continued, Cambridge Analytica broke down 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:53.320 Cruises target audience into four categories temperamental people, relaxed leaders, 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:58.040 timid traditionalists, and stoic traditionalists, and this was based off 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:02.360 the data the company had gathered about those potential voters, 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:07.040 and the company had also created suggested messaging for each group, 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.960 saying well, this target group, this type of messaging will 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.520 work most effectively, but for this other group, you want 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.880 to go with this different approach. And the whole idea 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.600 was that they were targeting psychological anchor points that would 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:24.240 give Cruizes campaign the advantage. Now Cruizes campaign made use 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.280 of data that Cambridge General Nitteca had gathered using Alexander 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:34.600 Cogan's Facebook app, the one that had retrieved information about 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:39.720 users friends without those friends consent. And also this was 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:44.360 in violation of Facebook's policies. Facebook was told that it 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.840 was going to be an academic research project and therefore 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.720 the data was supposed to just stay with Cogan and 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:55.240 not change hands. But that's not what happened. Cogan did 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:02.680 essentially sell the data from his possession to Cambridge Analytica, 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:08.640 so Ted Cruz making use of this data was big news, uh, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.120 and once people heard about it. No one had really 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.440 known about it at this point, but the information started 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.520 to leak. And this is a good point to talk 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.559 about how Facebook shares information among users. If you are 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.200 a user, some of you may not use Facebook, but 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.560 here's how it works. So you've got yourself a news feed, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.480 and that's where posts from your friends will show up, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.880 and occasionally, you know, posts from advertisers things like that 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.920 will show up there too, And you can post your 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:44.040 own things to Facebook, pictures, thoughts, whatever, and you probably know. 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.960 There are various privacy settings that you can activate before 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.240 you post stuff to Facebook. You could choose public that 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.280 means anyone who is on Facebook can view that material, 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.120 or you can choose different privacy settings. You can set 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.559 so that only your friends can read your posts, so 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.520 anyone who isn't your friend won't see the post that 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.760 you've you've put in. You can even exclude specific people, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.160 or you can select only specific people to be able 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.560 to see it. But you get the idea. Well, until 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.960 if you developed an app for Facebook, you could request 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.360 friends permission on that app, and that would give you 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.199 access to view user friend data. And if a user 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.280 says sure, yeah, i'll I want to use this app, 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.120 I agree to that, then that would mean you would 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.160 be able to view that user's friends as if you 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.640 were that user. And in fact, it's like you have 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.480 just become a friend to all of that users friends. 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.319 So let's let's use an example to make this more clear. 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:48.000 Let's say that Ben Bolan Ben Boland's using Facebook and 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.079 Ben Bowen comes across an app that I have made 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:55.040 any Season is an app from before, and he sees 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.200 that in this app, I've said I want to have 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.640 permission to view your your friends data, and Ben Bolan, 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.880 being the conniving jerk face that he is and not 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.839 giving a care about the privacy of his friend's data, says, sure, 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.600 I want to know what howson hogwarts I belong to. 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.480 I want to take this quiz, so he agrees. Then 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.599 I get to see that all, not just all of 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.400 Ben Bolen's data, but all of Ben Boland's friends data 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.760 as if I were Ben Bowlen. I get to see 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.439 all of his friends data, just as if I were him, 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:31.360 and I can collect all that data and make use 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:35.160 of it at all. Because he was so thoughtless, I 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:37.520 should give out his email address so that you can 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:39.680 send him complaints because he does that to me all 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:43.200 the time on his podcasts. But I'm not gonna because honestly, 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:44.640 Ben Bolan is actually a really nice guy and I 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.680 like him, but it's great to use him as an example. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.720 So this is why that number of people who may 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.760 have been affected by the Cambridge Analytica scandal is so 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:57.400 high at eighty seven million users, even though reportedly only 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:02.120 two seventy thousand people actually took the survey and agreed 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:07.720 to the the app permissions, and the average Facebook user 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.680 you see it has three thirty eight friends. That's that's 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:12.719 the average some people and more some people if you 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:17.880 were But if you multiply two by eight, you'll get 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:23.040 more than nine million possible friends. And granted there's bound 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.440 to be some overlap between different users. I'm honestly always 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.360 surprised to find friends I know from very different circles 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.520 who also happened to know each other. But you can 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.200 see why that seven million number got there. So in 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.480 Facebook would change that policy. These days, if you develop 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.480 an app, you can still send a friends permission request 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.000 and Facebook will review your app before allowing it to 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.719 be on the platform. But now that does not give 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.000 you access to view all of the friends data of 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.040 a user. Instead, what it does is it lets you 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.439 see a list of friends of that user who also 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.839 haven't all that same app. So you don't get new 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.280 information about new people. You just you just get to 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:10.160 know about connections between existing people who have already downloaded 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.480 your app. So you're just you know, you already have 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.199 that other users information because they installed your app already. Um, 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.760 so it's a very different policy. Well, when I come back, 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.120 I'll talk more about what Cambridge Analytica did and why 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:25.120 it got into so much trouble. But first, let's take 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:35.640 a quick break to thank our sponsor. Cambridge Analytica used 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.280 all that data to build out psycho graphic models of 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:44.960 potential voters, essentially putting them in these different categorizations. About 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.440 two months before the Iowa caucus, Caucuses and primaries are 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.640 how we decide which nominees within a party will become 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.240 the official party nominee for general election. If you're not 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.120 from the United States, it gets pretty confused ing anyway, 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.280 About two months before the Iowa Caucus, which is one 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.080 of the the it's the first big event that can 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.240 really set the tone for a nominee, The Guardian ran 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.800 a story revealing that Cambrage Analytica had possession of unauthorized 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.320 Facebook data and that therefore the Cruise campaign was depending 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.560 upon information that was gathered in an unethical way, that 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.560 they were relying upon information that people did not consent 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:30.200 to sharing. Facebook responded to this by telling Cambrage Analytica 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.280 and Alexander Cogan that they needed to delete all that data. 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.680 But Facebook really doesn't have any enforceable authority here. The 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:43.160 data had already changed hands first to Alexander Cogan and 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:47.800 then from Alexander Cogan to Cambridge Analytica. Chris Wiley said 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.520 that at this point he had already left Cambrige gen 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.880 Ata and he had deleted that data. But all he 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.880 had to do was fell out a little form and 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:02.080 click a checkbox and said that onto Facebook to say, hey, yeah, 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.400 I followed your instructions. But Facebook didn't take any steps 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:07.680 to actually verify that. And he says he could have 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:12.280 kept all of the data Facebook Facebook never would have known. Uh. 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.520 And and years later people said that the information was 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:19.040 still available from that time, that information that was gathered 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:22.240 by the initial app was still readily available. The New 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.040 York Times reported the data at least some of it 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:31.120 was still remaining in use as Cruise narrowly one in Iowa, 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.520 and Alexander Nicks was very quick to jump on that 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.360 news and boast about how his company, how Cambridge Analytica 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.840 helped push Cruise to victory, and that Cruise had started 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:45.360 in a very low place, like maybe polling at single 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:51.520 digit percentages, although that was not, you know true. Others 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:55.040 on Cruises campaign staff were not very quick to give 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.280 any credit to Cambridge Analytica, but Nicks was selling his 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.160 idea to a bigger audience now and staffers on the 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.200 campaign were concerned that Cambridge Analytica wasn't forthcoming and how 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.240 it was coming up with the various categories for voters. 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:13.080 They were not transparent in how they were making these determinations. 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:15.960 So the campaign staff says, we can't really tell how 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.120 well we're doing, and we can't even we don't even 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.480 know how they're coming to these determinations, so we can't 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.280 judge how well they're doing in the United States. Uh, 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.359 in order to become a nominee, like I said, you 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.960 have to participate in these caucuses, in these primaries. By 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.760 the time Cruizes campaign was working in South Carolina, staffers 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.400 noticed that the data they were getting from Cambridge Analytica 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.080 was woefully out of date. CRUs would come in third 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.639 place in South Carolina, and you didn't see Nick's jumping 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.840 up on the news to talk about that problem. Cruises 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:53.560 campaign stopped relying on Cambridge Analytica shortly thereafter, saying, you know, 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.560 I don't think this is really working out. I don't 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.359 think we're getting the return that we were promised. Now, 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.800 Nix did have the chutzpa to appear at the Concordia 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.240 Summit and claimed that Cambridge Analytica helped push ted Cruz 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.880 to a second place finish for the Republican nomination. Uh 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.560 The story Nix was selling was that Cruise had been 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:19.360 so far behind that getting second place was an enormous 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.600 achievement all by itself, and that the only reason he 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:24.720 was able to really get there was because Cambridge Analytica 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.440 was able to lift him much further than he was 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.760 going to go on his own. That's not necessarily an 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.959 accurate betrayal of what happened, as I understand it from 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.840 the various reports I've read, but it appeared that that 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.399 was Alexander Nick's messaging, and his next move was to 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.760 take aim at the Trump campaign to see if Cambridge 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.560 Analytica could get hired on to help in those efforts. 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.439 He had already attempted once before, but Trump was not 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.919 interested in hiring a political consultant that was already working 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.959 for one of his opponents. He had also around this 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.520 time allegedly reached out to Julian Assange. He's the founder 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.880 of Wicky Leaks. Assange had said that he got hold 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.439 of internal emails from the Clinton campaign, and these are 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.480 the same emails that we later discovered were harvested from 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.520 a cyber attack that was led by Russian hackers. So 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:16.480 Russian hackers attack Clinton's email servers, get access to these 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.920 emails and send them to Julian Assange over at Wiki Leaks, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.800 who then says, hey, I've got these emails. And then 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.200 Alexander Nicks reaches out to Julian Osange and says, I'd 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.320 really think we should talk about the possibility of making 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.879 use of this information. According to an article in Mother Jones, 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.480 Nicks really wanted to weaponize those emails, but Assange ended 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.040 up passing on that offer. Alexander Nicks would go on 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.920 to claim this company had essentially done all the marketing 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.440 and messaging for the Trump campaign, that Cambridge an Analytica 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:50.760 was ultimately responsible for developing the approach Trump used during 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:55.639 the whole election, and that Cambridge Analytica effectively won the 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.520 presidency for Trump, and that it was because of Cambridge 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.680 Analytica's research that Trump was able to target the voters 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.520 that would swing the election his way. He could lose 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.399 the popular vote, and he did by nearly three million votes, 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.880 but he won in areas that got him the electoral 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.760 votes he needed to win the presidency, and Alexander Nick 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.919 said that this was because Cambridge Analytica had done the 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.280 research and knew who to target and that's why Trump won. 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.600 Others in Trump's campaign are not so quick to credit 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:31.520 Cambridge Analytica. They dispute these claims. They say that the 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.000 firm was not instrumental in Trump's messaging, and that most 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.600 of those efforts were being funneled directly into Facebook from 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.639 the campaign itself rather than through Cambridge Analytica, and that 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.960 the consulting firm had even screwed up some major TV 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:51.560 ad deals, serving ads and locations that were a complete bust, 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:54.520 and that they were handling the campaign in a very 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.119 amateurish way. So, in other words, the story Nix was 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.240 telling didn't seem to match up with what other people 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.879 who had been involved in these campaigns had to say 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.320 about the matter. Steve Bannon, who would become the chief 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:11.000 political strategist for Trump for a while anyway, remained more 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.600 or less in charge of Cambridge Analytica until April seventeen, 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.359 which was several months after Trump had taken office, which 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.120 I don't know sounds like a conflict to me. By 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.600 the end of twenty seventeen, Cambridge Analytica had withdrawn from 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:28.080 pursuing consulting gigs in politics in the US. The official 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.240 reason that Alexander Nicks gave was that there was going 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.960 to be too many other political consulting firms in the mix, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:36.720 which meant there'll be more sharks in the water and 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.840 not enough food. It's gonna be too competitive, not not 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.080 lucrative enough, so the company was going to look elsewhere. 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:45.400 But a lot of the reports I read were very 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.680 skeptical of this claim, because if in fact, you were 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:53.160 a consulting firm that had just helped a candidate when 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:57.760 the position of President of the United States, you would 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.440 think you could leverage that into being a very lucrative 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:06.800 selling point for future campaigns. What these journalists have said 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:13.040 is that effectively Cambridge Analytica had been under delivering on 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:20.840 their their their promises regularly repeatedly, that perhaps those psychographic 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:23.960 models that the company had been touting may not have 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:28.720 been nearly as effective as the company was suggesting, and 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.719 that also they had a general lack of knowledge about 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:37.480 how US politics work. That these Brits were coming into 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.760 a US system and they didn't really understand the way 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:45.480 politics work in the United States, and that all of 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:50.119 this meant that people were viewing Cambridge Analytica as a 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:55.479 bad consulting firm for at least for American politics, and 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:58.399 it essentially landed the company on a do not hire 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:01.880 a list for both parties. So the general consensus seemed 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:05.240 to be that Trump had won the presidency despite participation 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.520 of Cambridge and Analytica, not because of it. So you've 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:10.960 got two different stories here. You have Alexander Nick saying 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.359 we're not gonna get involved in ten because there's not 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:16.840 enough money in it, and you have everyone else saying 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:20.000 you're not gonna get involved in ten because nobody wants you. 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:25.520 Was when things really fell apart for Cambridge Analytica. Over 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:29.320 in the United Kingdom, the BBC sent in an undercover 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:34.120 reporter to look into scl and Cambridge Analytica, which we're 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:36.960 still claiming to be two separate entities, but we're operating 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:40.560 more or less as a single one. This reporter got 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:44.040 got got stuff on tape, was able to capture on 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:48.520 tape discussions in which Alexander Nix himself talked about spreading 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:53.800 misinformation on purpose and even blackmailing political opponents of clients 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:58.640 through entrapment, essentially by by hiring sex workers to go 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:03.080 and and uh proposition those opponents and then use that 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:08.520 as a way of blackmailing those opponents. This gut, you know, 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:11.680 came to light, it was published, it it aired, and 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:15.119 then Alexander Nicks tried to shrug the whole thing off, said, oh, no, no, no, this, 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:19.040 I wasn't talking about things we would actually do. I 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:23.919 was engaging in this ridiculous hypothetical situation and uh in 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:26.320 a way to try and win a client. But we 0:24:26.359 --> 0:24:29.080 would never actually do any of that. And a lot 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:33.720 of the people that Noah Alexander Nick say yeah, this 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:38.159 is kind of in line with his approach anything to 0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:41.840 land that sale. So would the company have engaged in 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:46.640 these behaviors Maybe not. Maybe that was all talk, but 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:49.119 it's not good talk, especially not good talk to have 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:54.479 on tape and play out in public. Uh. This, by 0:24:54.520 --> 0:24:57.280 the way, would end up resulting in Cambridge Analytic a 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:00.680 suspending Alexander Nix in response to that warn't coming out, 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:05.200 and so he would be suspended as CEO and would 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:08.560 effectively be removed from power over in the United States, 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:13.680 investigations into Russian interference in the twenty sixteen elections extended 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:16.440 over to Cambridge Analytica and Nicks was called to appear 0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:19.760 before the House Intelligence Committee via video conference so he 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:23.159 didn't have to travel to the States. His testimony was 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:25.880 never made public. According to Alexander Nicks, he was only 0:25:25.920 --> 0:25:29.440 asked five questions and that was a total breeze, uh 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:31.240 or maybe it was three questions. He said, was in 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:34.080