Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica's collection of Facebook data, according to former employee

[highplainsdem]

Source: WaPo

LONDON — Conservative strategist Stephen K. Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica’s early efforts to collect troves of Facebook data as part of an ambitious program to build detailed profiles of millions of American voters, a former employee of the data-science firm said Tuesday.

The 2014 effort was part of a high-tech form of voter persuasion touted by the company, which under Bannon identified and tested the power of anti-establishment messages that later would emerge as central themes in President Trump’s campaign speeches, according to Chris Wylie, who left the company at the end of that year.

-snip-

In an interview Tuesday with The Washington Post at his lawyer’s London office, Wylie said that Bannon — while he was a top executive at Cambridge Analytica and head of Breitbart News — was deeply involved in the company’s strategy and approved spending nearly $1 million to acquire data, including Facebook profiles, in 2014.

“We had to get Bannon to approve everything at this point. Bannon was Alexander Nix’s boss,” said Wylie, who was Cambridge Analytica’s research director. “Alexander Nix didn’t have the authority to spend that much money without approval.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bannon-oversaw-cambridge-analyticas-collection-of-facebook-data-according-to-former-employee/2018/03/20/8fb369a6-2c55-11e8-b0b0-f706877db618_story.html

[dameatball]

1. Bannon makes me think of sticky doorknobs and refrigerator handles

[Marie Marie]

7. Perfect Description!

[onecaliberal]

2. Jail that fucker.

[YessirAtsaFact]

3. This crap has been in the works for years

Brexit and Trump were two results.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Bannon will go down.

[orangecrush]

5. K&R!

[sfwriter]

6. Does 18 US Code 1030 apply?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

I wish this applied.

[bluestarone]

8. Mueller wil get the right answers out of this BASTARD!

[Grassy Knoll]

9. Trump Hired Bannon

Collusion , The End.

[SergeStorms]

10. The "Crooked Hillary" meme.....

came directly from Cambridge Analytica's "Meme Machine", along with many others.

Anyone here remember a guy named Frank Luntz? He used to be the conservative's public opinion and talking point 'go-to' man. What used to take Frank Luntz days, or even weeks, of public opinion polling and focus groups to form GOP talking points, Cambridge can do in less than an hour. Then it hits the internet through several hundred "trusted" conservative shadow hubs, and by the end of the day it's reached millions of neo-cons, fascists, racists or whatever other group they're trying to attract. They' re all chanting, "Lock her up!" "Lock her up!" later that evening, in different parts of the country, in unison, with astonishing rapidity, due to Cambridge Analytica's "services".

I'm hoping all this negative publicity spells a death sentence for Cambridge and other data-mining companies like it. I'm realistic, however, and know this will only drive them underground and they'll morph into even more sinister and destructive entities, used by right-wing autocrats to gain - and maintain - absolute power in our country.

The internet: In the right hands it's capable of such wonderful things, but it can also bring about the end of the world as we know it.