Thread by @sarahchurchwell

C4 news tonight leading with data leak from Trump's 2016 campaign database: “a major investigation reveals data leak & evidence that 3.5m Black voters were marked as ‘deterrence’ in a bid to stop them going to polls."

“In one of biggest database leaks ever” C4 reveals that 3.5 million black voters were targeted in Wisconsin by Trump campaign and other swing states. Clear racist voter suppression.

#C4News have obtained a huge cache of Trump 2016 campaign database. They had a group called “Deterrence” they knew wouldn’t vote for them and so they tried to stop from voting.

Facebook claims it won’t happen again but won’t reveal what did happen. So that’s convincing.

Trump campaign had data on almost 200 million US citizens for micro-targeting on Facebook and other platforms, including 3.5 million black voters they worked to “strategically disenfranchise."

So I guess for those of us wondering why African American turnout fell for the first time in two decades in 2016, maybe we’re starting to see an answer.

Many were “dark posts,” which could appear on people’s Facebook pages and then disappear - working with Cambridge Analytica. Black citizens were disproportionately categorized for “deterrence.” 54% of their “deterrence” was targeted at black and other ethnic minorities.

Black voters in Wisconsin made up 5.4% of voters but 17% of Trump’s “deterrent” vote, whereas 75% of the voters they thought they could “persuade” were white.

They are identifying streets and wards where the Trump campaign marked them for deterrence and turnout fell precipitously. Wow they are now interviewing individual voters to tell them they were targeted.

Wisconsin State Senator shocked that there was this level of micro-targeting.

Ah here is Brad Parscale, denying on PBS that they ran any campaigns that targeted African Americans. I remember reading this.

Here is Parscale saying he’s nearly 100% sure they “did not run any campaigns that targeted… African-Americans."

This is the same team who helped break Cambridge Analytica, by the way.

“Facebook didn’t deny any of the claims we put to them” says #C4news and “declined” to share any ads or info or put anyone up for interview. They just said it won’t happen again. So that’s fine then.

C4 being very careful about the Parscale aspect but has mentioned that Parscale was taken to the hospital yesterday after threatening self-harm.

C4 promises that this is the first of a series - they’ve obtained this major campaign data leak so it seems there’s more to come…

Ah, thanks - here is link to whole (first) report.

https://twitter.com/bodkinblack/status/1310666248800403456

Great thread following up implications of #C4News #DeterringDemocracy report, including Parscale’s perjury & Facebook’s active assistance in Trump campaign.

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1310610613937283072