Tesco
The Cambridge Analytica Files
Article

The Cambridge Analytica Files

‘I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower

Carole Cadwalladr
The Observer, 2018
Read the article

Read or listen offline

automatisch generiertes Audio
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×
automatisch generiertes Audio

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Eye Opening
  • Insider's Take

Recommendation

Christopher Wylie attracted worldwide media attention when he outed himself as the brainchild behind “Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool” that helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election. Wylie is facing significant legal risks by going public – yet doing so has become a matter of conscience for him. Carole Cadwalladr is a features writer for the British newspaper The Observer. Her article is an in-depth profile of the data scientist and his stint at Cambridge Analytica. getAbstract believes her piece is a must-read for Facebook users and everybody following the twists and turns of the post-2016 election fallout in the United States.

Take-Aways

  • Data scientist Christopher Wylie took on a position as research director for the research firm SCL Group in 2013.
  • Wylie pitched his idea of using personality profiles to target political messages to Steve Bannon and Robert Mercer, who helped found SCL Group subsidiary Cambridge Analytica.
  • Wylie joined forces with Cambridge University-based Aleksandr Kogan, who was conducting academic research using Facebook data. 

About the Author

Carole Cadwalladr is a features writer for The Observer in the United Kingdom. 

Comment on this summary or Diskussion beginnen