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New: before the Cambridge Analytica scandal, its parent company worked on behavioral influence campaigns to fight terror & propaganda for US, UK, NATO, and other militaries, using what the State Dept. called "unique qualifications and special capabilities" fastcompany.com/90235437/befor…
Sandia National Labs, a Pentagon partner, said last year it had never formally worked with SCL. But documents show multiple projects, like an "in-depth behavior change study" in Asia. Sandia acknowledged the collaborations and said it had "unintentionally muddied those waters"
As the conglomerate fades, abusive info operations flourish, fostered by governments & an unregulated industry of influence peddlers, including ex-SCL employees. During elections, tactics intended for battlefields can foment division & extremism or discourage voters, experts warn
"The risks of influence industry companies adapting military-funded techniques or repurposing data and its derivative models have not been focused on enough... Oversight, transparency and reporting were clearly not fit for purpose." - @EmmaLBriant
"The same company doing voter analytics is doing counterpropaganda work for the State Dept... Americans have absolutely no protection regarding an int'l military contractor using our voter data for any reason, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” - @profcarroll #TheGreatHack
In April '18 @SenatorMenendez wrote to SCL and the State Dept. asking for a breakdown of SCL's activities and gov't contracts, as well as descriptions of work Michael Flynn performed for SCL. Senator's office told us they never heard from SCL & would not comment on the State Dept 
as we found, FOIA is a hard way to learn about defense contracts. @EmmaLBriant asked UK Ministry of Defense for info on SCL / Cambridge Analytica employees' access to SECRET data
MOD wrote back today: Yeah we have that info but it would take us about 640 staff days to retrieve it
MOD wrote back today: Yeah we have that info but it would take us about 640 staff days to retrieve it
New: the FTC is examining whether Cambridge Analytica vice president Bannon’s "practices regarding the collection and use of consumers’ information from Facebook were deceptive or unfair."
In July FTC sued CA, which is also being probed by DOJ, FBI & ICO politico.com/news/2019/09/2…
In July FTC sued CA, which is also being probed by DOJ, FBI & ICO politico.com/news/2019/09/2…
SCL built a method of TAA—Target Audience Analysis—for taxpayer-funded military psychological ops. Here's a sample on "YUMs" from an undisclosed country
Cambridge Analytica touted TAA to microtarget voters, incl. for John Bolton's Super PAC & a pitch for Leave.EU
Cambridge Analytica touted TAA to microtarget voters, incl. for John Bolton's Super PAC & a pitch for Leave.EU
Aggregate IQ, an SCL-linked firm paid for pro-#Brexit digital electioneering, needs more scrutiny, says MP @IanCLucas
He asked Boris Johnson to compel Dominic Cummings—ex-Vote Leave director, now adviser to Johnson—to give evidence to Parliament. No reply
He asked Boris Johnson to compel Dominic Cummings—ex-Vote Leave director, now adviser to Johnson—to give evidence to Parliament. No reply
Disinformation is surging online, @oiioxford reports this week. Facebook is the primary vector, and strategic communications companies provide "computational propaganda as a service" in 25 countries
Behavioral science + big data + AI only makes this worse
oii.ox.ac.uk/news/releases/…
Behavioral science + big data + AI only makes this worse
oii.ox.ac.uk/news/releases/…
