Cambridge Analytica

Where is that story, primrose?

I must say that I've been keeping an eye on twitter all evening as any revelations of Remain cheating would have been all over even my echo chamber of a timeline... but nothing as yet...

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/31/aggregateiq-canadian-tech-brexit-data-riddle-cambridge-analytica

This will be in tomorrow's Observer, and I can see no mention of Remain in it.

Where is that story, primrose?

Another Spectator story. This one doesn't think Cambridge Analytica being involved in the US and UK elections is all that important.

www.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/revealed-cambridge-analytica-and-the-passport-king/

If the UK decides that all the Russians they have sold passports to for millions are persona non grata, will they need to give the money back?
Passport selling sounds very much like the Cambridge Analytica scam.

Good article, varian. This paragraph is important, too.

"The greatest challenge to 21st–century democracy is that uninformed voters are being replaced by misinformed ones. Alexander Nix put it well, during that Channel 4 sting operation, when he said of propaganda that: ‘Things don’t necessarily need to be true, as long as they’re believed.’ Uninformed voters often stay home. Misinformed voters turn out — and they often want to blow up the system or see a political rival permanently excluded from power. This can lead to anti-establishment politics, as in the UK and US; and in less politically stable parts of the world, to political violence and the discrediting of democracy itself."

"Around the world, democracy is being hijacked. And unless the western democracies start to care, election quality will continue to decline. This threatens to undermine the very idea of democracy, turning these elections into an empty ritual that the government always wins. The Cambridge Analytica revelations are the tip of the iceberg. This isn’t about one company or a handful of elections, it is about a concerted attack on democracy by a powerful alliance of authoritarian leaders and multinational companies. It has gone unnoticed and unanswered for too long. A parliamentary inquiry into what such companies are doing around the world would reveal, fairly quickly, how much has gone wrong. And why, for those who care about democracy, it is time to fight back."

www.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/how-to-rig-an-election/

By the way, primrose, how do you know what is going to be in the Observer tomorrow?

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/03/31/the-whole-purpose-of-advertising-is-to-spread-dissatisfaction/

Gone a bit quiet about Cambridge Analytica lately.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/29/cambridge-analytica-predecessor-had-access-to-secret-mod-information

I’m not really sure that it is relavent in any case. The question is the legitimacy of the way the referendum was run. If remain are also found to be culpable then it surely simply reinforces the illegitimate argument.

How do you know that, primrose?

Both sides funded payments to AIQ through other campaigns.

Do you have evidence for that statement Primrose?

Maizie I believe there's going to be a report about this in the Observer this weekend, as I posted previously.

Evidence of Goves involvement in Leave EUs campaign. He seems to have forgotten his involvement

pbs.twimg.com/media/DZY2DbrWAAAIKJ4?format=jpg

newsthump.com/2018/03/29/illegal-brexit-adverts-didnt-affect-me-insists-brexiter-with-house-is-full-of-things-he-saw-advert-for/

I agree that there is as yet no evidence that Remain broke the spending rules to the level that leave appear to have done. However this doesn’t negate the fact that the referendum is under question with regard to its legitimacy. Indeed if the remain side are proved to be guilty of the same crime, them the referendum must surely be ruled null and void?

Not a 'flawed election' (doh...) a 'flawed referendum'

Both sides funded payments to AIQ through other campaigns.

Sorry, having re read your post I can't see that you're actually alleging that Remain groups covertly overspent. so what are you tring to say with this statement?

The significance of AIQ is that it is linked to CA and the strange coincidence that the student leader of a very insignificant campaign suddenly a) discovered AIQ, despite the fact that it had no internet presence, b) suddenly had £600,000 odd to spend with them and c) that the money never entered their account; the bill was paid by Vote Leave.

If there is similar evidence of 'cheating' on the Remain side it only reinforces the view that the referendum campaigns were fuelled by cheating and that either the result should be declared void or there should be a rerun. A decision so major and so absolutely crucial to the future of the UK should not be made on the basis of a flawed election. The very fact that it's being implemented at all without fair consideration of the closeness of the vote is bad enough, but to continue on the basis that 'both sides cheated so that's OK then' is utterly appalling.

It certainly doesn't accord at all well with our cherished British value of Fair Play...

Both sides funded payments to AIQ through other campaigns.

Do you have evidence for that statement Primrose?

Because I haven't seen any accusations of Remainer groups covertly overspending. but that might just be because they haven't entered my bubble.

I have seen Leaver 'complaints' of all the Remain groups spending more in total than did the all Leave groups, but I don't think there was a cap on over all total spending so that is irrelevant. The spending cap was on individual groups and it is this which is the focus of the current row.

The Intellectual Property licence has been put out for scrutiny, which links CA and AIQ- hence LeaveEU to vote leave.

The CA and Facebook contract is also for scrutiny published by Damien Collins as part of the Fake news enquiry.

I think both sides have already been investigated by the electoral commission for that though. Is there new evidence?

The thread is about CA, so it's a fair assumption that a comment about electoral fraud would be in relation to that.

Both sides funded payments to AIQ through other campaigns. I can understand saying both sides cheated, but that was not the allegation in Jura's post.

The 'fraud' is not the use of harvested data for targeted advertising (though the use of improperly obtained data is a great concern). The fraud is the apparent conspiracy to overspend the allowed amount for the individual campaign groups. Cheating. I am amazed that people, including May, seem so relaxed about this. Well, not just amazed but horrified.

AIQ was paid through campaign manager Nick Boles, a Stronger In campaigner. It's going to be in the Observer this weekend. But don't read this through the Guardian app, unless you want them to access all your FB data!

So are you saying that the Remain side didn't do the same thing with other companies like CA or in-house?
You'd be surprised at who takes your FB data and uses it - even the Guardian does that with their app. Your data and your friend's data. It's in their privacy policy.
I'm sure most people were unaware that this is/was happening, the scale of data collection and how it is used. But understanding this is not the same as blatant electoral fraud.

oh not much - just a bit of blatant electoral fraud ...

that, with such a tiny majority, could, or almost certainly would, have made all the difference.

Why has anything changed Jura? Am I missing something?

lemongrove, could you kindly remind us of the massive and unequivocal majority the vote got?