Bannon and Cambridge Analytica planned suppression of black voters, whistleblower tells Senate

[BaggerofTea]

Bannon and Cambridge Analytica planned suppression of black voters, whistleblower tells Senate

Appearing before the Senate Judiciary committee today as part of the ongoing investigation of Cambridge Analytica and various forms of meddling in the 2016 elections, former employee and whistleblower Christopher Wylie said that the company and its then-VP Steve Bannon were pursuing voter suppression tactics aimed at black Americans.

Although Wylie insisted that he himself did not take part in these programs, he testified to their existence.

“One of the things that provoked me to leave was discussions about ‘voter disengagement’ and the idea of targeting African Americans,” he said. “I didn’t participate on any voter suppression programs, so I can’t comment on the specifics of those programs.”

“I can comment on their existence, and I can comment more generally on my understanding of what they were doing,” he explained under questioning from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).

“If it suited the client’s objective, the firm [SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company] was eager to capitalize on discontent and to stoke ethnic tensions,” read Wylie’s written testimony.

“Steve Bannon believes that politics is downstream from culture. They were seeking out companies to build an arsenal of weapons to fight a culture war,” he explained at another point in the session. He suggested questions on the nature of those weapons, and the specifics of any potential race-based voter suppression tactics, to be directed to Bannon.

That such a system might work, however, he did address.

“How specifically, then, did they target African American voters,” Sen. Harris had asked, “understanding as you do that the African American population is not a monolith? How did they then decipher and determine who was African American so they would target them in their intent to suppress the vote?”

“Racial characteristics can be modeled and I’m not sure about the studies that my colleague here was referencing but we were able to get an AUC score, which is a way of measuring accuracy for race that was .89 I believe,” Wylie answered.

AUC, he then explained, stands for “Area under the receiving operations characteristic. It’s a way of measuring precision, which [the .89 figure] means it’s very high.”

In other words, black voters could be identified based on their social media presence and other factors, despite the fact that the black community is, obviously, far from homogeneous.

It’s not particularly surprising that Bannon, who has aligned himself repeatedly with alt-right and white nationalist figures and movements, would be contemplating ways to decrease the number of people of color voting. But it is new that it was being pursued relatively openly under the Cambridge Analytica banner.

Sen. Harris and others requested any “evidence of the conduct you’ve described” Wylie may have.

Wylie also testified that Facebook, when it asked Cambridge Analytica to certify that it had deleted the data it was using in violation of the company’s rules, “did not require a notary or any sort of legal procedure. So I signed the certification and sent it back and they accepted it.”

We have a lot of this on thecoli @Brooklynzson

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

That doesn’t prove Steve Bannon and his backers are racist.

 

[wire28]

Blindly vote for democrats even though they are two sides of the same coin brehs

oh wait

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Split the vote, brehs

 

[Pressure]

Split the vote, brehs

The Coli told me these tactics don't work, but I read the Coli so I know they did.

 

[AndroidHero]

These tactics by white supremacists isn't only about voting for Trump or Republicans, they are also trying to do everything to discourage black people from voting completely or getting involved in politics and a lot of dumb people in thecoli are falling for these tactics.

That is why Trump thanked African-Americans for not voting in the last election.

Donald Trump has thanked African Americans for not voting in the election.

 

[Strapped]

Did they manipulate or pay off tariq or anyone else to supprss the black vote

 

[Worthless Loser]

Did they manipulate or pay off tariq or anyone else to supprss the black vote

No pay off. Straight manipulation. A lot of these militants are gullible and not smart. If you play to their pre-determined biases, you got them on lock. A lot of the militant shyt about Hilary and Trump being the same from Tariq and people on here, were indirect and direct influence from Russian fake news and CA.

 

[Strapped]

The man is constantly trying to finesse us

 

[ORDER_66]

We're not the majority of the country anyways our votes didn't matter because we don't hold key positions in electoral college states... If the electoral college ain't abolished whoever is the najortma will win in a similar manner...

We need to focus on local politics

 

[BaggerofTea]

Did they manipulate or pay off tariq or anyone else to supprss the black vote

More manipulation than anything else.

As said @Frank Grimes these clowns are gullible

 

[BillBanneker]

I guess we're all forgetting about the stricter voter laws passed by repub state legislatures after Obama won again in '12 (intended to suppress black votes).

 

[Serious]

@DEAD7

 

[Black Hans]

Coli witch hunt threads

Because we all know it's impossible for black people to not support the Dems or Repubs.

Your Golden Girl lost, let it go. Maybe if the Dems actually address black people's concerns instead of trying to stoke our votes with fear, they'd get what the results they want. Rambling about white supremacists voting for Trump ain't going to churn out black voters so you can exploit our struggle for your chaotic agenda. The fact that you even think something like that let's me know all that needs to be known about voting for the "lesser of two evils" Ain't no "Russian influence" over here, playboy.

 

[DEAD7]

fukk Bannon.