Recently, the “wall Street Journal” reported that special counsel Robert Mueller has requested that analysts called Cambridge Analytics to turn over internal documents in the investigation of possible collusion between the campaign and the trump of Russia during the elections of 2016.
Cambridge Analytics specializiruetsya on what is called “psychographic” profiling, that is, they use data collected online to create profiles of the individual voter. Then they take that information and target people with the help of specially developed Content (more on this below).
Still there was much speculation about possible links between the trump campaign and Russia, and most of the stories have spread around the financial operations of the trump family and people like by Paul Manafort, a former campaign Manager of trump. But this story is about how the team’s trump card with this company, may have contributed to Russia’s intervention in the US presidential election.
So here’s what we know about Cambridge Analytics and its relationship with the trump campaign, and what sorts of things Mueller is likely looking at.
Trump’s digital army
In June 2016, the trump campaign has hired Cambridge analyst to take over its data operations.
We know from the report Nicholas Confessore and Danny Hakim in the new York times, Jared Kushner, who is responsible for overseeing the digital operations of trump, is the cause of the Cambridge analyst joined the campaign trump.
Kushner hired a man named brad Parscale, TX-digital expert, who has previously worked in the team of the trump. According to Confessore and Hakim, Cambridge analysts believe Parscale (which agreed to answer the questions of the Committee on intelligence in the house) to “try out.” The decision was backed by the campaign Manager of trump, Steve Bannon, who is a former Vice-President of the Cambridge analyst.
It is not clear to what extent Cambridge Analytics helped (Parscale denied that Cambridge was some benefit in a recent interview with 60 minutes), but we know that the digital operations of trump was surprisingly successful. Samuel Woolley, who heads the advocacy project of the computer network of the Institute of Oxford, found that a disproportionate number of Pro-trump message was distributed through automated bots and anti-Hillary propaganda. Bots trump, they said during the election, was superior to Clinton five to one.
About trumps programmers “carefully to adjust the timing of the production of Content in the debate, strategically colonized the Pro-Clinton hashtags, then people with disabilities on election day”.
Martin Moore, Director of the Center for the study of media, communications and energy at the Royal College, told the Guardian, Carole Cadwalladr that trump’s campaign “40-50,000 options of ads every day, constantly measuring the responses, and then adapting and evolving based on this response.”
These ads on the Internet were mainly using bots in social networks. Ads that are liked, shared, retweeted and just was reproduced and redistributed based on where they were popular and who are they addressed to K.
In favor of this kind of data is that it allows companies data such as Cambridge Analytics to develop more complex psychological profiles of Internet users (more data points means greater predictive power).
Cambridge Analytics was also able to use this information in real time to determine which messages were resonating, where and then build the schedule of the trip of trump around him. So if there has been a surge of clicks on an article about immigration in a County in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, trump would go there and give the immigration-oriented speech.
When you consider how few thousand votes in a handful of swing States determined the election, it is no small thing.
Flynn and the Russians
At the beginning of July, Shane Harris from “the wall Street Journal” published a series of reports that offer some of the most compelling evidence that trump’s campaign in collusion with Russian hackers.
Harris spoke with a man named Peter Smith, a Pro-trump quickly-the GOP who sought to acquire 30,000 deleted e-mails from private server to Hillary Clinton. Several hacking groups Smith reached out to at least two had to do with Russia is, according to Smith.
Smith told Harris that he was in constant touch with General Michael Flynn, who at the time was one of the closest confidants of trump — and, of course, later became national security Advisor to trump.
Here’s the key excerpt from the report of Harris, which my colleague VOX Andrew Prokop said during:
Harris examined the intelligence reports that spoke about the efforts of Russian hackers to retrieve messages from the server Clinton and pass them along to Flynn, who then share them with a trump campaign.
By itself, the statements Harris makes no relation to Cambridge analyst. But in August, the associated Press published a report that helped to connect the dots. In the edition of the government financial filing, Flynn was forced to disclose “a brief Advisory role with company associated with controversial company data analysis that helped trump the campaign.”
The company “data analysis” is none other than Cambridge analyst. The exact amount of money is paid to Cambridge Flynn unknown, as details about the role of Flynn.
But we know that Congress and DOJ investigators believe that the campaign trump may have helped the scheme of the Russian leadership aimed voters and Flynn, who worked on the campaign of trump from the Cambridge analyst, is suspected of extensive contacts with Russian operatives.
The representative of the Cambridge analyst confirmed to VOX that the company is cooperating with the investigation of Russia, but categorically denied any wrongdoing.
“As one of the companies that played an important role in the election campaign, Cambridge analyst, was proposed by the intelligence Committee of the chamber to provide him with information that could help the investigation”, – stated in the message. “We believe that other organizations who worked on the campaign were invited to do the same. CA is not under investigation, and no one is suggesting any wrongdoing on the part of the company.”
What makes Cambridge an analyst, really?
If you use the Internet or social media, You leave behind a digital trail of breadcrumbs. Every post You like, every tweet can retweet, every thread you take part — all the data collection and input.
Cambridge Analytics, a company created by Robert Mercer, the billionaire patron of right-wing outlets like Breitbart news, was absorbing all the data they can get. They are not only doing it, but they appear to be the most visible, in part due to their senior clients.
In his speech, 2016, Alexander nix, Director of the Cambridge analyst, deployed the methodology of the company: “we have rolled out a detailed quantitative tool to check the basic traits that inform identity,” – he declared. “If you know the personality of people you are targeting, you can nuance Your message more effectively resonate with those key groups.”
On the “your message” he means, who pays the company for their services. But while the firm only took on Republican clients, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson is most noticeable. They also worked on behalf of 2016 about a quarter or a month “leave” campaign, the production of online information and using it to target and persuade British voters.
So they make all this data?
Cambridge analysts have built models that transform the data they collect in personality profiles for every American adult — NIKS says that “somewhere around 4 or 5 thousand data points for each adult in the United States.”
Their model is based on psychometric studies Michal Kosinski, who in 2013 was a PhD candidate at Cambridge University (hence the name “Cambridge Analytica”). Kosinski and his colleagues have developed a model that linked the subjects Facebook likes with your points ocean. Ocean refers to a questionnaire used by psychologists that the description of personality along five dimensions — openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, pliability, and neuroticism.
Cambridge Analytics is a social psychology with data analysis. They collect data from Facebook and Twitter (which is legal) and have acquired a lot of other data about television preferences, airlines, travel, shopping habits, going to Church, what books you buy, what magazines you subscribe to — from third parties and so-called data brokers.
They take all this information and use it for what nix calls the “behavioral microtargeting” — mostly individualized advertising.
Instead of tailoring ads according to demographics, they are using psychometrics. It’s a simple idea, really. And not to assume that all women or African-Americans or working-class whites will respond to such a message, they focus on individual voices with emotional content — in other words, the ads, designed to be towed on emotional biases.
The success of this approach depends on the accuracy of psychological profiles of the company. But how much can they know about someone’s psyche based on a few tweets or likes? Quite a lot, apparently. Profile 2016 for Das MAGAZIN, Zurich magazine culture, Kosinski talked about the predictive power of his model.
Here’s how the authors summed up:
To combine this kind of predictive power with an army of bots and you have a powerful propaganda tool. As Woolley said to me, “one person controlling thousands of bot accounts can affect people in their immediate environment, but also potentially the algorithm of the site on which they work.”
The bots even more effective because they are able to react instantly to trending topics on Twitter and Facebook to produce targeted messages, images and even YouTube videos.
“Technology can capture what people think at a particular moment,” Albright said to me, “and serve him to return to them again and again.” And with the use of psychographic profiling, he adds, they are able to deliver “the content on an individual basis on Twitter and Facebook channels where people are grabbing and pulling in certain directions through certain types of messages and stories.
“I call it emotional leash,” said Woolley.
We don’t know much
We don’t know if Flynn actually passed any data of Russians. We don’t know if its many ties with Russia as a result of collusion.
We don’t know if trump campaign agreed upon with Russia to help its disinformation operation. We only know that there are many points of coincidence. And if someone in his campaign did coordinate with Russia, we don’t know if trump himself was involved in any way.
We don’t know if the data obtained at Cambridge Analytics ever find your way to the Russians. And if so, we don’t know exactly how it got there and how much it helped or if the company was aware of it.
We also do not know how it is useful to work with Cambridge Analytics is the trump campaign. Researchers like Woolley told me that the capabilities of the company “a little exaggerated”, but we just don’t know. We only know what they publicly admitted about their methods and what they claim to be able to do.
One thing we know with data such as Cambridge Analytics have changed things. Facebook is already under fire allows Russia to manipulate its algorithms during the election of 2016. And we probably just scratched the surface with the point of view of how state actors can use information on the Internet. The role of companies like Cambridge intelligence in these efforts remains a mystery.
In any case, there is no conclusive evidence found that connects Cambridge Analytics and trump campaign on Russia’s attempts to influence our elections. What we’re left with, ultimately, tons of smoke and no fire. But if the ongoing investigation to conclude that the trump campaign can help target votes, expect to hear more about the Cambridge analyst.
It is possible that such a conspiracy could take place and the proceedings of the Cambridge analyst had nothing to do with it; however, it would be strange, because the address of the vote-that’s exactly what the company was hired to do.
Sourse: vox.com
