New Evidence Brexit Dirty Tricks a Training Prelude to Trump Campaign

[Perknose]

Bannon & Cambridge Analytica:

For two years, observers have speculated that the June, 2016, Brexitcampaign in the U.K. served as a petri dish for Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign in the United States. Now there is new evidence that it did. Newly surfaced e-mails show that the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica, the Big Data company that he worked for at the time, were simultaneously incubating both nationalist political movements in 2015.

 

[Commodus]

After November 2016 it really did feel like the Brexit vote was a prelude to something worse in the US. It was proof that right-wing fearmongering and misinformation campaigns could fool enough people to sway a key decision. The Trump campaign just took that to its logical conclusion.

Also, doesn't it feel like the world went on some kind of weird political bender in recent years, like they had to throw a good thing away just because they were bored? "Eh, we're tired of rational, compassionate, vaguely moderate politics... let's try these xenophobic right-wing demagogues for a while."

 

[darkswordsman17]

I'm curious if they've looked into the Israeli election that took place the year before. It had a lot of similar hallmarks, yet I see basically no one mention it. I'm not sure if it used any of same resources, and its kinda a chicken and egg situation, were the later ones basing it off of what they saw in Israel, or was Israel one of the initial ones they attempted those methods before expanding them?

I think that was the real place to start with on this stuff as that's when it was clear that there was pentup nationalist/jingoist sentiment that politicians could tap into even in the West. I know some will say Israel is conservative and give other excuses, but its been trending more progressive and was on the cusp on a real breakthrough, to the point that Bibi even tried to exploit that to stay in power by acting like he'd be the bridge, but then something made him make a very hard right turn. I don't think that would have worked without something more.

I have a hunch this stuff was trialed before, but that Israel was likely the first real trial in the West. And then they built on it in Britain (people seem to forget that stuff actually forced the Brexit shit in the first place so it wasn't just the vote that led things there). I won't be surprised to find out that this was based on CIA tactics either.

 

[cytg111]

Bannon is a top tier Bond Villain.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Bannon is a top tier Bond Villain.

Where the Bond women at?

 

[pmv]

I'm open to being convined otherwise, but I don't personally think the Cambridge Analytica thing is a big deal. As far as I can see it was mostly a bunch of self-important privately-educated chancers vastly over-hyping their own capabilities. They _want_ to be seen as Bond villains, but they aren't up to the job. Listening to their overblown claims they sounded like a Harley Street quack selling hair transplants or boob implants (exactly the same accent and tone of voice those types use, as well).

There do seem to have been some shennanigans over breaching spending limits, but above all I think the whole exercise was stupid, because those who voted 'for Brexit' never really told the rest of us exactly what they were voting for.

_Now_ the most vocal of them say they always meant 'no-deal Brexit', while others still insist they wanted a better deal but they were betrayed by the cunning remainer May (echoes of the traditional 'stab in the back' myth, as used by the German military in post-WW1 Germany - note how all the Tory Brexiters ran a mile when the time came to actually take responsibility for putting the plan into practice, almost certainly because they didn't have a clue how to do it).

While still others admit they didn't know what they were voting for and wouldn't have voted for it had they known the details, or were just generally pissed-off.

But I'm mostly filled with a feeling of doom either way. Brexit is far from the EU's only crisis, even if by a miracle the vote was reversed we'd just be jumping out of one bitter fight with everyone angry with each other into another, bigger, one. Slower-moving but still with potential disaster round the corner.

I don't buy the more conspiracy-leaning explanations, they all seem too contingent and superficial to me, I think there are deeper trends involved.

I'm not saying it's purely 'economic anxiety', but the loss of belief in collective projects and identites, and the common good, that came with the death of socialism, has left people feeling far more inclined to see life as a zero-sum game and to see all outsiders as potential threats and competitors.

 

[Meghan54]

Where the Bond women at?

Here ya go......

 

[Perknose]

I'm open to being convined otherwise, but I don't personally think the Cambridge Analytica thing is a big .

Cambridge Analytica getting their grubbly little hands on the private information of 50 milliion American Facebook users was a big deal.

Facebook! Where millions of the most credulous deplorables get their political news.

Don't think the BS on Facebook works? Read this article Vic posted in another thread.

 

[pmv]

I think it’s significant in its own right, as an example of how you’d be a fool to trust Facebook or what it tells people about their personal data, sure. It's a profit-seeking corporation, of course it's not going to worry about ethics, the only thing it will worry about is how the law will effect the bottom line.

I'm not saying they should be allowed to get away with it. I just haven't seen a reason to believe that particular business made a real difference to the Brexit vote outcome, or that CA had the super-clever methods to get useful results out of that data, that they tried to make out they had.

In any case, owners of the media have been using that power to try and manipulate people since long, long before the advent of social media. E.g. Randolph Hearst and his papers promoting vicious colonial wars for the purposes of profit. Or Rupert Murdoch demonising anything remotely left-wing (though also being nice with the Chinese communists when it benefited his commercial interests).

I agree it bears watching, but I don't see that this is particularly new, and in the specific case of CA it seems, so far, to be _less_ effective than the traditional methods.

 

[Jhhnn]

I think it’s significant in its own right, as an example of how you’d be a fool to trust Facebook or what it tells people about their personal data, sure. It's a profit-seeking corporation, of course it's not going to worry about ethics, the only thing it will worry about is how the law will effect the bottom line.

I'm not saying they should be allowed to get away with it. I just haven't seen a reason to believe that particular business made a real difference to the Brexit vote outcome, or that CA had the super-clever methods to get useful results out of that data, that they tried to make out they had.

In any case, owners of the media have been using that power to try and manipulate people since long, long before the advent of social media. E.g. Randolph Hearst and his papers promoting vicious colonial wars for the purposes of profit. Or Rupert Murdoch demonising anything remotely left-wing (though also being nice with the Chinese communists when it benefited his commercial interests).

I agree it bears watching, but I don't see that this is particularly new, and in the specific case of CA it seems, so far, to be _less_ effective than the traditional methods.

Do not underestimate the capabilities of big data. And don't blame facebook too much, either. CA bought that data from a researcher who broke his confidentiality agreement w/ facebook, iirc.

Use of big data has become pervasive in marketing. CA applied that to politics. And they didn't so much sell Trump as they sold the fake news crooked Hillary routine, just like the Russians. It was easily one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in History. Anybody who ever believed Hillary was anywhere as crooked as Donald Trump is fully delusional.

Facebook doesn't want this shit. They don't like being manipulated by the purveyors of fake news, either. I don't think they appreciated the breadth & depth of that prior to the 2016 election.

 

[pmv]

Anybody who ever believed Hillary was anywhere as crooked as Donald Trump is fully delusional.

No disagreement on this bit. I don't trust Hillary Clinton politically but I don't believe she's personally corrupt....whereas I don't think Trump even recognises the concept of 'ethics'.

But I am just not convinced the source of that delusion is social media manipulation, rather than the long-standing and deeper political problems, or, more prosaically, what seems to be a pretty poor education system.

The other thread referred to seems to be less about the awful effect of social media as examples of how many people there are out there who can't or won't think critically about anything - which is either because they are already too angry or because they had a poor quality education.

And, again, I haven't seen anything so far to suggest CA specifically had any real effect on the Brexit vote. (I'm very much of the opinion now that there needs to be a second referendum, now that people actually know what is being voted about, but Lord alone knows what's gong to happen at this point)

Meh, I don't think we are really at loggerheads, maybe it's just age, that I'm used to railing against the manipulation of the traditional media for so long and can't see social media as the significant force it perhaps is.

 

[Jhhnn]

No disagreement on this bit. I don't trust Hillary Clinton politically but I don't believe she's personally corrupt....whereas I don't think Trump even recognises the concept of 'ethics'.

But I am just not convinced the source of that delusion is social media manipulation, rather than the long-standing and deeper political problems, or, more prosaically, what seems to be a pretty poor education system.

The other thread referred to seems to be less about the awful effect of social media as examples of how many people there are out there who can't or won't think critically about anything - which is either because they are already too angry or because they had a poor quality education.

And, again, I haven't seen anything so far to suggest CA specifically had any real effect on the Brexit vote. (I'm very much of the opinion now that there needs to be a second referendum, now that people actually know what is being voted about, but Lord alone knows what's gong to happen at this point)

Meh, I don't think we are really at loggerheads, maybe it's just age, that I'm used to railing against the manipulation of the traditional media for so long and can't see social media as the significant force it perhaps is.

Social media is the new frontier of manipulating the masses, make no mistake about that. It doesn't help that the GOP has been crazifying their base for decades, either. They had to in order to sell trickle down.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

What do you suppose a big data operation could accomplish by cross referencing stolen Facebook user data with stolen health care and stolen financial personal data? Think it'd be hard to find easily-compromised or easily-radicalized individuals and nudge/coerce some extraordinary behavior out of them?

Think this could relate at all to the steadily increasing occurrences of violent outbursts in American society?

 

[cytg111]

Where the Bond women at?

Where Bond at? Shit is going down and he on vacation?