The Facebook data breach has opened a can of worms for several governments, and they’ve been scampering to do damage control. Meanwhile, Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower who outed Cambridge Analytica and its role in the US election and Brexit campaigns, is one busy man, taking his explosive story from one parliamentary hearing to another.
Only yesterday, before the Parliamentary panel of UK, Christopher Wylie revealed that Cambridge Analytica (CA) and parent company Strategic Communication Laboratory (SCL), did work with Indian National Congress in India.
Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Christopher Wylie has accepted before British Parliamentary committee that Cambridge Analytica worked for the Congress Party.This vindicates what we have been saying from day one. Rahul Gandhi has been trying to divert attention all these while
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) March 27, 2018
It took barely any time for BJP to demand and apology from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who had been denying any such involvement with CA of SCL.
And so on, the blame game continued.
Naturally, you can imagine how Wylie’s inbox must be full of queries from Indian news media, asking him to shed some more light on the degree of CA and SCL’s involvement in India.
And now, Wylie has obliged.
This afternoon, Christopher Wylie took to Twitter to share some specific details about CA/SCL’s past campaigns in India.
Inundated with requests for more information, Wylie shared a year-by-year account of political parties seeking SCL’s assistance during elections, withholding parties’ names in the process.
I've been getting a lot of requests from Indian journalists, so here are some of SCL's past projects in India. To the most frequently asked question – yes SCL/CA works in India and has offices there. This is what modern colonialism looks like. pic.twitter.com/v8tOmcmy3z
— Christopher Wylie 🏳️🌈 (@chrisinsilico) March 28, 2018
His concluding statement makes for a rather grim closing.
“To the most frequently asked question—yes, SCL/CA works in India and has offices there. This is what modern colonialism looks like.”
According to the data he shared, most of these projects were about in-depth psychological studies commissioned by parties to identify swing voters and voter castes.
A year-wise breakdown of the projects that SCL carried out, including on during the 2010 Bihar elections for Janata Dal.
A brief description of the services offered by SCL India states,
“We provide our clients with the research to develop and disseminate the right messages from the right sources, using the right communication channels.”
Wylie also shared a map of all the zonal offices of SCL in the country, which shows one head office in Ghaziabad and nine other regional offices across the country.
Caste-based division of voters has always been the norm during elections in India. So caste research and analysis being one of the most frequently commissioned studies comes as no surprise.
As expected, the information has outraged many, and piqued their curiosity for even more information.
Things are definitely murkier than they look on the surface.
1. Divide and rule?
https://twitter.com/chunchun_2000/status/978942781958733824
2. Regressive ways!
An example of how technology is used to emphasize regressive divisions in society and benefit from it. https://t.co/zOyiezrzmB
— Srinivasan Ramani (@vrsrini) March 28, 2018
3. Tip of the iceberg, is it?
This could only be tip of an iceberg.. there's surely a lot more to be uncovered.. but how did it remain undetected for so long?#DataLeak #DatagateScandal #dataleakwar https://t.co/GZxTlWUDzc
— Raman Patil 🇮🇳 (@ramanrpatil) March 28, 2018
4. Can we be afraid of AI now?
The use of AI to bring down a nation and its people on their knees. https://t.co/pLzv534dIi
— R.S. Bains (@HerrBains) March 28, 2018
5. “Big Data Analytics”
Not hearing too many people congratulating the cold hard math of these methods to win elections. Oh sorry, the new term is "big data analytics". Wasn't it cool until a few months back? Weren't paeans to the "greatest election machine" being sung as rigorous political analysis? https://t.co/mTUMykeoVm
— Angshukanta (@angshukanta) March 28, 2018
Something tell us, Wylie is not done spilling the beans on Cambridge Analytica’s various ventures just yet. We’ve got to wait and watch what explosive piece of information surfaces next. As for the political parties involved in this mess, damage control in full swing.