Election security

The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower explains how the firm used Facebook data to sway elections

Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, is known for leaking documents to journalists that showed how Cambridge Analytica harvest the data of millions of Facebook users without their consent, using it to inform targeted political advertising. The campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz paid over $5 million each to the firm, Wylie wrote. 

Wylie's newest book, "Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America," details more about the firm's operations.

In an excerpt published in New York Magazine, Wylie says the firm used focus groups and qualitative observation to learn what Facebook users are interested in, including term limits, "draining the swamp," guns, and building walls to keep out immigrants. Wylie says that the firm was already exploring these ideas in 2014, before Trump's campaign. 

Cambridge Analytica came up with ideas for how to best sway users' opinions, testing them out by targeting different groups of people on Facebook. It also analyzed Facebook profiles for patterns to build an algorithm to predict how to best target users.