Alexander Nix, who’s currently suspended as CEO of Cambridge Analytica, is shown speaking at a 2016 event in New York City. He and his company are accused of mishandling personal data from 50 million people during their political consulting work, which included President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Concordia Summit
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Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Concordia Summit
Alexander Nix, who’s currently suspended as CEO of Cambridge Analytica, is shown speaking at a 2016 event in New York City. He and his company are accused of mishandling personal data from 50 million people during their political consulting work, which included President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Concordia Summit
It’s been a rough week for Cambridge Analytica.
Several state attorneys general in the U. S. have started investigations into the company’s misuse of personal info from 50 million Facebook users. After a New York Times story exposed that the firm broke Facebook’s rules by using that data improperly, Facebook suspended them. Then came undercover videos showing CEO Alexander Nix making wild claims about bribing politicians or setting traps by “sending some girls to the candidate’s house.” As a result, Cambridge Analytica’s board put Nix on suspension.
This all feels worlds away from when the 2016 presidential race kicked off and Cambridge Analytica jumped into American politics aiming to give conservatives powerful big-data tools to compete with Democrats. Their big pitch? Creating detailed psychological profiles on every voter so campaigns could customize messages specifically for each person.
“We’ve been appealing to the same demographic on the same issue,” Nix told NPR back in February 2016, “yet how we nuance this engagement is completely different.”
Nope, Cambridge Analytica didn’t capture everyone’s personality perfectly. But here’s how Nix explained their method then: They worked with researchers to design “a 120-question survey that seeks to probe personality,” he said. “And we’ve rolled this out to literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people across America.”
The survey asked all kinds of questions about behavior and personality traits. Then they scored folks on things like openness, extroversion, agreeableness – basically parts of what psychologists call the “big five” personality traits.
Personality profiles
The results were mixed with polls, voter records, and online activity to build personality models for voters. According to Nix, even if they hadn’t talked directly with you: “if I talk to enough people who look like you, in terms of what data they have, I’d be able to quantify your personality based on the discussion I’ve had with other people.”
This week The Times revealed that much of this info was gathered by breaking Facebook’s policies. Aleksandr Kogan – an outside researcher linked with Cambridge University – built an app requiring users to log in via Facebook.
The rules back then let this app collect not just user info but also details about their friends – things like education background, locations, groups and pages liked, relationship status, job info.
Kogan was supposed to use this data only for academic research purposes but wasn’t allowed to share it with third parties like Cambridge Analytica as promised.
This led Facebook to suspend both Kogan and Cambridge Analytica from its platform.
Cruz campaign embraces Cambridge Analytica
A lot of this collected information fed into those highly publicized psychological profiles. While these days people mostly associate Cambridge Analytica with Trump’s general election run, it was actually Senator Ted Cruz from Texas who first hired them.
The Cruz team really bought into political science theories plus big-data campaigning techniques early on-and divided voters into six different psychological types during initial primaries. They sent tailored messages depending if someone was labeled a “timid traditionalist” versus “temperamental,” even though calls or emails still talked about Cruz’s positions on the same issues.>
The psych profiling grabbed lots of media attention after Cruz won Iowa caucuses-especially once Nix publicly took credit during interviews.>
BUT as time went on Cruz’s folks got doubtful about how useful all this profiling really was. They dropped most psych-based targeting after South Carolina primaries-even though some CA staff stuck around working on his campaign afterwards.>
“In explicit contractual language, Cambridge Analytica affirmatively represented that all data used by them were obtained legally, that they would conduct their operations ‘in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations,’ and that they ‘hold all necessary permits , licenses and consents to conduct its operations,’ ” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said in an emailed statement this week.
>>Cruz ended his run after losing Indiana primary votes. When he bowed out , Trump became Republican nominee , leading CA staffers shift focus over there too. This move aligned closely with major donors Mercer family , who had deep financial ties within CA.>>Cruz camp embraced high-tech approaches willing experiment ; meanwhile Trump initially thought digital strategies were less important — telling AP he saw “data as overrated” shortly after nomination.>>E ven so , CA workers embedded inside Trump digital head Brad Parscale ’ s San Antonio base played key roles managing online efforts.>>”We did all the research , all the data , all analytics , all targeting ; we ran digital campaigns , TV ads – our numbers shaped everything ,” Nix accidentally admitted during undercover Channel 4 sting.>B ut according sources close : no psychological profiling ever factored much at Trump HQ. Given low tech setup there , CA staff focused more simply : boosting online fundraising , reaching swing voters & increasing turnout day itself.>Cruz & Trump insiders say neither team ever used stolen FB info illegally gathered by CA -both lost faith eventually in company & its boss alike.
Nix kept claiming credit nonstop for wins by both camps – breaking usual behind-the-scenes silence norms typical among campaign workers. Nix still brags loudly about what CA did – just recently without knowing camera caught him doing so again.
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