Cambridge Analytica CEO suspended after boasts of 'putting Trump in White House'

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This was published 6 years ago

Cambridge Analytica CEO suspended after boasts of 'putting Trump in White House'

By Nick Miller

London:  Secretive British data company Cambridge Analytica has suspended its CEO Alexander Nix after he boasted to undercover journalists about using honey traps, misinformation campaigns and bribery stings to influence election campaigns.

The announcement came as the UK's Channel 4 News revealed executives claiming they were the power behind Donald Trump’s election campaign. Channel 4 had recorded Nix and others from CA promoting their services to an undercover reporter.

Chief Executive of Cambridge Analytica (CA) Alexander Nix, leaves the offices in central London after being suspended.

Chief Executive of Cambridge Analytica (CA) Alexander Nix, leaves the offices in central London after being suspended.Credit: AP

Nix claimed CA “did all the research, all the analytics, all the targeting, we ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy” for Trump.

They said their mastery of data analytics allowed the Trump campaign to target the voters who would win him the White House – pointing out that he lost the popular vote by 3 million people but won by influencing “40,000 votes in three states”.

Cambridge Analytica executives as portrayed in the Channel 4 expose.

Cambridge Analytica executives as portrayed in the Channel 4 expose.

They claimed the political candidate was just a “puppet” in this kind of campaign.

They boasted of developing the “Defeat Crooked Hillary” slogan into hundreds of internet memes which they seeded and boosted on social media.

Mark Turnbull, managing director of CA’s political division, said they used “charities or activist groups” to “put information into the bloodstream of the internet and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again over time to watch it take shape. And so this stuff infiltrates the online community and expands but with no branding so it’s unattributable, untrackable”.

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And they revealed that they used a secret email service called ProtonMail – developed and based in Switzerland – to send messages that self-destructed after being read, to prevent leaving an auditable trail of their actions.

On Tuesday the CA board said Nix was suspended with immediate effect pending a full, independent investigation.

“In the view of the Board, Mr. Nix’s recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation,” they said in a statement.

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They were referring to the previous night’s Channel 4 report, in which undercover footage showed executives from CA talking about dirty tricks they might use to support political campaigns.

These included working with former spies to dig up political dirt, offering incumbents “a deal that’s too good to be true and make sure that’s video recorded”, or sending “some girls around to the candidates’ house… some Ukrainians on holiday with us, you know what I’m saying”.

The UK’s Information Commissioner is seeking a warrant to search CA’s London office to investigate claims that CA used Facebook data gathered without the social media giant’s permission, or its users’ knowledge of the purpose it was being gathered for.

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