All language subtitles for The.Great.Hack.2019.NF.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.x264-NTG-English

[wind blowing softly]

[soft, indistinct chatter]

[man 1] Ms. Kaiser,
you seem to have traveled a long way

from an idealistic intern
in Barack Obama's campaign

to working for an organization
that keeps pretty unsavory company.

Didn't that make you uncomfortable at all?

[man 2] You referred to having two sets
of business cards.

Who did you work for?

[explosions booming]

[man 1] Don't take this the wrong way.

In your life, have you ever worked for

or provided information
to any country's intelligence agency?

[man] Hi. A small coffee, please?

- Uh, $2.25.
- Great.

All right.

- [phone chimes]
- [man] Who has seen an advertisement

that has convinced you

that your microphone is listening
to your conversations?

[class laughing]

[man] It's hard for us to imagine
how else it could work,

but what's happening
is that your behavior

is being accurately predicted.

So, the ads that seem uncannily accurate,

that have to be eavesdropping on us,

are more likely to be evidence

that the targeting works,

and that it predicts our behavior.

Maybe it's because I grew up
with the Internet as a reality.

The ads don't bother me all that much.

When does it turn sour?

[electronic chiming]

[phone chimes, vibrates]

[female voice over PA]
This is a Brooklyn-bound Q express train.

- The next stop is Canal Street.
- [phone vibrates]

[phone vibrates]

[Carroll] It began with the dream
of a connected world.

A space where everyone could share
each other's experiences

and feel less alone.

It wasn't long before this world
became our matchmaker,

instant fact-checker,
personal entertainer,

guardian of our memories,
even our therapist.

[speaks indistinctly to students]

[Carroll] I was teaching digital media
and developing apps.

So, I knew that the data
from our online activity

wasn't just evaporating.

And as I dug deeper, I realized...

these digital traces of ourselves

are being mined
into a trillion-dollar-a-year industry.

We are now the commodity.

But we were so in love

with the gift of this free connectivity...

that no one bothered to read
the terms and conditions.

- [overlapping voices]
- [digital noise]

[Carroll] All of my interactions,

my credit card swipes, web searches,

locations, my likes,

they're all collected in real time
and attached to my identity,

giving any buyer direct access
to my emotional pulse.

Armed with this knowledge,
they compete for my attention,

feeding me a steady stream of content
built for and seen only by me.

And this is true
for each and every one of us.

What I like,

what I fear,

what gets my attention,

what my boundaries are,
and what it takes to cross them.

[overlapping voices]

[woman 1] Go back to Washington.

[woman 2]
Crooked Hillary tells lots of lies.

The stock market's gonna crash.
I mean, this'll cause a civil war.

[Carroll] We saw the fallout
of our filtered realities

in the 2016 election.

[woman 3] ...you were not offended
when Donald Trump said it!

[overlapping shouts and jeers]

- [man 1] Get the fuck out!
- [angry shouts overlapping]

[Carroll] The real world became
a deeply divided wreckage site.

- [protesters chanting indistinctly]
- [overlapping shouts]

[man 2]
Fuck those dirty beaners! Build the wall!

[man 3] Whoo!

[men shouting] Fight!

[Carroll] How did the dream
of the connected world tear us apart?

[static crackles]

[Carroll]
My daughter is eight, and my son is four.

Uh, every app is carefully scrutinized
before ins... being installed, and...

And, like, now, I'm the dad
who reads the privacy policy and says,

"No, you see here?
They read your messages.

Are you okay with that?" [chuckles]

That's, like, the new way
I'm gonna be an annoying parent.

- Hey.
- [kids chattering]

[Carroll]
I've been concerned for a long time

about how the misuse
of our data and information

could affect my children's future.

But it wasn't until
after the 2016 election that I realized

it had already happened on our watch.

It was really, like, a feeling of, like...

[takes a deep breath]

...the worst-case scenario has happened
with technology.

Hmm.

I became obsessed with finding answers.

And the question I kept asking myself was:

Who was feeding us fear?

And how?

This was our Project Alamo,
where the digital arm

of the Trump campaign operation was held.

When Project Alamo was at its peak,

they were spending
one million dollars a day

on Facebook ads.

We had the Facebook,
and YouTube, and Google people.

They would kind of congregate here.

I mean, they were basically
our hands-on partners

as far as, you know,
being able to utilize the platform

as effectively as possible.

But what we also learned

is that a company
called Cambridge Analytica...

was also working on Project Alamo.

Cambridge Analytica was here.

And this is kind of the brain of... of,
you know, the data.

- [over video] This was the data center.
- [man] Right.

"We gotta target this state.
We gotta target that state."

- So, within that...
- [man] How would they know that?

- How would they know that...
- That's... That's their secret sauce.

- [computer chimes]
- [mouse clicks]

- [Carroll] Paul-Olivier?
- [Paul-Olivier] I'm there.

Okay. Let me just, uh, set up my screen.

[Carroll] I connected with a mathematician
based out of Switzerland

named Paul-Olivier Dehaye.

[Dehaye] I've been looking
at Cambridge Analytica for over a year

and I think there's more to be found.

[Carroll] Both Paul and I understood that

in order to send people
personalized messages,

you need people's data.

And Cambridge Analytica
claimed to have 5,000 data points

on every American voter.

But it was invisible.

And so the question is,
how do you make the invisible visible?

[sighs] That's the hardest part. Um...

- [marker squeaks]
- [Carroll] Paul-Olivier Dehaye had

a hypothesis,

and the hypothesis was that US voter data

was processed
by Cambridge Analytica's parent company

in Great Britain.

And if it was true,

I could use a British lawyer
to force Cambridge Analytica

to give me my data.

[man] I think the beauty of David's case
is it encapsulates

why data rights should be considered
just fundamental rights, simple rights.

Because all he wants to know

is what did you do?

And if David finds out
the data beneath his profile,

you'll start to be able
to connect the dots in various ways

with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica
and Trump and Brexit

and all these loosely-connected entities.

Because you get to see inside the beast,

you get to see inside the system.

[man] I used to be the COO and CFO

of the Cambridge Analytica, or SCL, Group.

If you spoke to most people
that worked at Cambridge Analytica,

they would say the same thing.

It was, uh...
an environment of great innovation.

Hello, my name is Alexander Nix.

I'm CEO of Cambridge Analytica,

the world's leading
data-driven communications company.

From Mad Men of old to Math Men of today,

expert data scientists whose insight

can tell you far more about audiences
that you want to reach

and how to reach them.

[Wheatland] Alexander Nix was very focused
on building a strong elections business.

And then the Obama campaign
very successfully used data

and digital communications,

which created a market opportunity
to provide a service

to Republican politics in the US.

[crowd cheering]

[Cruz] God bless the great state of Iowa.

[crowd cheering]

[Wheatland] Ted Cruz went
from the lowest rated candidate

in the primaries

to being the last man standing
before Trump got the nomination.

[crowd members cheer]

Let me first of all say...

- to God be the glory.
- [crowd cheering]

[reporter] Everyone said Ted Cruz had
this amazing ground game,

and now we know
who came up with all of it.

Joining me now, Alexander Nix,
CEO of Cambridge Analytica,

the company behind it all.

It's fascinating, Alexander,
to look at all of the work

that goes into the ground game.

Have any of the other candidates
called you?

Well, um...

[audience applauding]

It's my privilege to speak to you today

about the power of big data
and psychographics.

When Cambridge Analytica
joined the Trump campaign,

we were an attractive proposition.

We'd just spent 14 months
working on the Ted Cruz campaign,

and had collected a huge amount
of voter data and research,

which we were able to hand over
to the Trump team.

By having hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of Americans

undertake this survey,

we were able to form a model,

where we have somewhere close
to four or five thousand data points

we can use to predict the personality
of every adult in the United States.

Because it's personality
that drives behavior,

and behavior that obviously influences
how you vote.

We could then start to target people

with highly-targeted
digital video content.

[man 1] Secretary Clinton said there was
nothing marked classified on her emails

either sent or received. Was that true?

[Trump] Our movement is about replacing

a failed
and corrupt political establishment.

Why aren't I 50 points ahead,
you might ask?

[man 2] Do you really need to ask?

[Clinton coughing]

- [crowd cheering]
- [rousing orchestral theme plays]

A night that will go down in history,

a stunning upset as Donald Trump
triumphs over Hillary Clinton,

defying the polls, the pundits,
and the political class once again,

this time elected president
of the United States.

[orchestral theme continues]

[crowd cheering]

[crowd chanting] USA! USA!

- Thank you.
- [chanting continues]

[Trump]
Thank you very much, everybody.

[Nix] If there's one singular takeaway
from this event,

that is that these sorts
of technologies

can make a huge difference

and will continue to do so
for many years to come.

Thank you.

[audience applauding]

[Wheatland] After the election,
it was really exciting.

[cheering]

[Wheatland] We could see the path
to being a billion-dollar company.

We were on top of the world.
Or at least we thought we were.

[Cadwalladr] This is the exciting box.

I've been investigating
Cambridge Analytica

and how that ties to the Brexit campaign
to leave the European Union.

And this has been my full-time,
12-hours-a-day,

seven-days-a-week kind of obsession,
I would say, since then.

It's been all-consuming.

[sighs]

When I first started looking
into this whole web of links

between Cambridge Analytica and Brexit...

I emailed Andy Wigmore,

who is an associate of Nigel Farage.

And Nigel Farage is a very central figure
in the Brexit campaign.

I sort of said,
"Oh, can we go for a coffee?

I'm really interested in technology
and campaigning."

And then he just sort of like,
he just like laid it all out.

[upbeat jazz playing]

[Cadwalladr]
It was just after the Inauguration.

So, Andy, he was just like sort of, like,
showing me all the photos on his phone.

"This is the inauguration."

Then, "Oh, it's such a laugh!

We had such a good time. Oh, Donald..."

And I was like, "How did the introduction
to Cambridge Analytica come out?"

He was like, "You know, it's 'cause Nigel.
Nigel's friends with Steve Bannon."

- Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Bannon!
- [audience cheers]

[Cadwalladr] Steve Bannon headed
the campaign for Trump.

He's also the Vice President
of Cambridge Analytica.

So he's like, "Yeah, there's this bunch
of billionaires in the States.

We've all got the same aims,

and Brexit was the petri dish for Trump."

For most of my life,
America is the leader.

Now, I would like to think,
in my own little way,

that what we did with Brexit

was the beginning
of what is gonna turn out to be

a global revolution

and that Trump's victory
is a part of that.

[people cheering, applauding]

[scoffs] Anyway, and then he told me
all sorts of other stuff

about, you know, how they used
artificial intelligence,

you know,
how they were mining details from Facebook

and, um...

And he was like... And he was like,
"It's creepy, Carole!" He said,

"The amount of information
you can get on people...

People just give it to you!"

And he sort of said,
"It's just so creepy!"

So, I just kind of kept going.

The Brexit work.

I'd started tracking down all these
Cambridge Analytica ex-employees.

And, eventually, I got one guy
who was prepared to talk to me.

Chris Wylie.

We had this first telephone call,
which was insane.

It was about eight hours long. And...

[mimics explosion sound]

My name is Christopher Wylie,
I'm a data scientist

and I helped set up Cambridge Analytica.

It's incorrect to call Cambridge Analytica

a purely sort of data science company
or an algorithm, you know, company.

You know, it is a full-service
propaganda machine.

[interviewer] You were an investor
in Cambridge Analytica.

- I helped put the company together.
- [interviewer] And... Yes, you did. And...

And gave it...
And gave it that amazing name.

[Wylie]
Steve Bannon was the editor of Breitbart.

He follows this idea
of the Breitbart doctrine,

which is that, if you want
to fundamentally change society,

you first have to break it.

And it's only when you break it

is when you can remold the pieces
into your vision of a new society.

This was the weapon

that Steve Bannon wanted to build
to fight his culture war.

And we could build them for him.

But I needed to figure out a way
of getting data,

and so I went
to these Cambridge University profs

and asked, "What do you think?"

Kogan offered us apps on Facebook
that were given special permission

to harvest data not from just the person
who used the app or joined the app,

but also it would then go
into their entire friend network

and pull out
all of the friends' data as well.

If you were a friend of somebody
who used the app,

you would have no idea
that I just pulled all of your data.

We took things like status updates, likes,

in some cases, private messages.

We wouldn't just be targeting you
as a voter,

we'd be targeting you as a personality.

We would only need to touch
a couple hundred thousand people

to build a psychological profile

of each voter in all of the United States.

[Cadwalladr] And people had no idea

that their data was being taken
in this way?

[Wylie] No.

[Cadwalladr]
You didn't ever stop and think,

"Actually, this is people's
personal information,

and we're taking it, and we're using it
in ways that they don't understand"?

[Wylie] No.

Throughout history, you have examples
of grossly unethical experiments.

[Cadwalladr] Is that what this was?

[Wylie] I think that, yes,
it was a grossly unethical experiment.

You are playing with the psychology
of an entire country

without their consent or awareness.

And not only are you, like,

playing with the psychology
of an entire nation,

you're playing with the psychology
of an entire nation

in the context of the democratic process.

[news anchor speaks indistinctly nearby]

[Carroll]
The revelations have started to spill out.

We're now not just threatening
to do things, but we're actually doing it.

- [anchor] Okay, we're ready, guys.
- [man] One, two, three...

We turn now to the burgeoning scandal

around voter-profiling company
Cambridge Analytica.

David Carroll filed a legal challenge
in Britain

asking the court
to force Cambridge Analytica

to turn over all the data it harvested
on him.

Explain what you are demanding.

Uh, full disclosure, so...

where did they get our data,

how did they process it,
who did they share it with,

and do we have a right to opt out?

[man] Cambridge Analytica says

it's got 5,000 data points

on many, many millions
of people out there.

[Carroll] That's right.

When people can actually see
the extent of the surveillance,

I think they're going to be shocked.

We don't work with Facebook data.
We don't have Facebook data.

Uh, we do use Facebook
as a platform, uh, to advertise.

Mr. Nix, Channel 4 News.

Did you mislead Parliament
over the Facebook issue?

- Absolutely not.
- [reporter continues indistinctly]

[Carroll] It's crazy that I have to mount
a year-long,

super risky legal challenge
in another country

to get my voter profile.

David, don't stop, don't relent.

[Carroll chuckles]

- Keep going. Good.
- I'm gonna do it, don't worry.

- [woman] Don't sleep!
- [Carroll laughs]

Facebook's down 6.35%.

That's 120 billion dollars.

This is huge.

[reporter 1] Officers working
for the UK Information Commissioner

are searching the headquarters
of Cambridge Analytica, in London.

[reporter 2] They're inside,
they're looking at computers,

they're looking for documents.

[reporter 3] Facebook knew about
that data collection over two years ago

but did not go public
until three days ago.

Really, Facebook?

You forgot to mention
that 50 million people

had their private data breached,

but every time it's my uncle's friend's
sister's dog's birthday,

I get a notification?

[audience laughs]

[reporter 4] You are taking on a giant,

a Goliath of big data marketing.

How hopeful are you of succeeding?

- [woman makes indistinct introduction]
- [audience applauds]

[Carroll] People don't want to admit
that propaganda works.

Because to admit it means confronting
our own susceptibilities,

horrific lack of privacy,

and hopeless dependency

on tech platforms ruining our democracies

on various attack surfaces.

Join the struggle
to help get our data back.

[applause, cheering]

Welcome to our inquiry
into disinformation and fake news.

I'd like to welcome Christopher Wylie
and Paul-Olivier Dehaye,

uh, to the committee
to give evidence this morning.

[O'Hara] Have you or anybody else made
any assessment

of actually whether any of this
made much difference

to the final outcome of the EU Referendum?

When... When you're caught
in the Olympics doping, right,

there's not a debate about how much
illegal drug you took. Right?

Or, "Well,

he probably would've come in first
anyway,"

or, you know,
"He only took half of the amount," or...

Doesn't matter. If you're caught cheating,
you lose your medal. Right?

Because...

[stammers]...if we allow cheating
in our democratic process,

what about next time?

What about the time after that?
Right? You shouldn't win by cheating.

A lot of people will say,
and I'll say, um,

that given that you're someone
who worked very closely with these people,

uh, for a period of time,

why have you decided to speak out
against it

and give evidence against people
who used to be your colleagues?

It's a process of coming to terms
with what you've created

and the impact
that that... that... that has had.

Um, I am incredibly remorseful
for my... my role in setting it up.

But there's been a lot of attention on me
because I'm sort of... I've become the...

uh, you know, the face of it,
because I'm the one that's...

come forward and put my name to it.

But someone else
that you should be calling

to the committee is Brittany Kaiser.

Who's Brittany Kaiser?

I'm not that interested in standing up
for powerful white men anymore

who obviously don't have
everybody's best interests at heart.

[reporter 1] Brittany Kaiser,
once a key player

inside Cambridge Analytica,

casting herself as a whistle-blower.

[reporter 2] Until three weeks ago,
Brittany Kaiser, a top exec there,

she had a key to Steve Bannon's townhouse
in Washington.

She spoke at CPAC in 2016,
along with Kellyanne Conway,

spent election night
at the Trump victory party

with mega-donor Rebekah Mercer.

[reporter 1]
Miss Kaiser was also closely involved

with millionaire Brexit supporter
Arron Banks

and his Leave. EU campaign.

[reporter 3]
She's raising some interesting things.

Why is she talking now, do you think?

[man] Well, she only gave us
part of the picture.

She's talking to investigators,
and so we'll know the full picture

at some point later...

[soft jazz playing]

[Kaiser] I have evidence

that the Brexit campaigns
and the Trump campaign

could've been conducted illegally.

And so, for my own safety,
I don't need geolocation of where this is.

Just me sitting here...

the person trying to overthrow
two administrations

and all of the most powerful companies
in the world,

all at once.

[chuckles]

With one disjointed
but hopefully-soon-seamless narrative.

[chuckles]

The wealthiest companies
are technology companies.

Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla.

And the reason why these companies

are the most powerful companies
in the world

is because, last year, data surpassed oil
in its value.

Data is the most valuable asset on Earth.

And these companies are valuable

because they have been exploiting
people's assets.

It wasn't until one of my friends
reached out to me

to ask was I going to be all right

with the way that my story would be seen
in history.

And I thought, "No.

I'm not okay, actually." [chuckles]

And there's probably a lot of information
that I could give

that would be helpful
to making things okay, possibly.

[Hilder] I'm a political technologist

who tries to shine a big light

on how data's been used and abused.

It's a moment where people have
that visceral sense.

There is, you know,

that there's something wrong here,
uh, that we need to fix.

And so, I've dropped
pretty much everything I was doing

to work on this with Brittany Kaiser.

I went and found her and met her,

and she was very forthcoming

in a way which made me think,
[chuckles] "There's a lot here."

[applause, scattered cheers]

What we really need to be understanding
is people's levers of persuasion.

How are we actually going to message
voters so that they can under...

[man] Tina and I met with Brittany Kaiser.

[Kaiser] We look very unlike
any other political

and communications firm, so...

[woman]
Do you work both sides of the aisle?

Uh, no, we only work for the Republicans
in the United States.

[woman] Okay.

And in Britain?

[Kaiser] Well, actually, right now
we're working on the Brexit campaign.

At Leave. EU, we're going
to be running a large-scale research

throughout the nation to really understand

why people are interested in staying in
or out of the EU.

And the answers to that will help inform
our policy and our communications,

to make sure that we turn out
more first-time voters,

more unregistered voters,
more apathetic voters than ever before.

[Hilder] I think we now have
the foundations laid for...

her to share what is
some reasonably explosive materials

that we've been finding.

Uh, and, uh...
her inbox and her hard drive,

uh, really are a treasure trove
of... uh, sketchy information.

And we're still
just scratching the surface.

[dance music playing]

[Hilder] Tell us about the first meeting
you had in Trump Tower.

In November 2015,

I went with Alexander Nix
to go see Corey Lewandowski,

who was the campaign manager at the time.

And I asked Corey, why could this place
possibly look so familiar?

And he said,
"This is the set of The Apprentice.

That's probably why you recognize it."
And...

I was kind of shocked, you know?

The Trump campaign HQ is a reality TV set.

[Hilder] Yes. It is.

And the idea of a company...

conducting large-scale analysis
of a population...

Mm-hmm.

...and then identifying the triggers
that people have

in terms of what's gonna move them
from one state to another state,

that feels very challenging

to the individual's sense of autonomy
and freedom...

- Mm-hmm.
- ...uh...

and to the idea of democracy.

Doesn't it?

I don't know. Um...
I would challenge that.

What this strategy is mostly meant to do

is to identify people
who are still considering

- many different options...
- Yes.

...and educate them
on some of the options that are out there,

and if they're on the fence,

then they can be persuaded
to go one way or the other.

- Yes, they can.
- Uh, again, that is their own choice.

- But a lot of the times...
- Is it?

- ...these are individuals that...
- [Hilder] Is it their own choice?

In the end, they're the ones
that go to the ballot box

- and make their ch... decision.
- [Hilder] Yeah.

I mean, I'm asking you these questions
as Brittany Kaiser.

- [Kaiser] I know.
- Right?

I'm not asking you these questions
as Cambridge Analytica or SCL,

because that's not
who you are anymore. Right?

I get it. I get it. But...

[Hilder stammers]
And do you think Cambridge Analytica

was ever involved in the contravention
of people's human rights?

[Kaiser] No.

But, [chuckles] again, I start to question
a lot of things the more I hear.

[Hilder] Yeah.

[Kaiser] I mean,
I had spent my entire career before that

working for human rights.

[Hilder] Okay.

Let's go back to that. [chuckles]

It wasn't that long ago. Just a decade.

- [Hilder] It wasn't that long ago.
- Yeah.

[Kaiser] I had worked in elections
since I was 14 or 15.

I told my cousin I applied
to intern on the Obama campaign.

She was like, "Oh, my God.

You better get that internship,
or I'll die."

I was part of the team
running Obama's Facebook.

We invented the way social media is used
to communicate with voters.

I then spent several years
working on human rights

and international relations,

first for Amnesty International,

then lobbying at the United Nations
and European Parliament.

And I used to always say
I love human rights campaigning,

but sometimes I feel like
I'm banging my head against a brick wall

because I can't see the results
of what I'm doing.

I don't know
if I'm literally just wasting my time.

And that's where I was
when I met Alexander Nix.

- [low chatter]
- [cutlery clinking]

[Kaiser] Friends of ours thought
it would be a good joke to introduce us.

He was very interested in learning more
about my experience with the Democrats.

He gave me his card and said,

"Let me get you drunk
and steal your secrets."

And in December 2014,
he offered me a job.

Coming across a company
where you could actually see your impact

was really exciting for me.

I got a little more conservative or posh

in terms of the way that I dressed
and the way that I spoke,

and doing things
like going on shooting at the weekends

and stuff like that.

It's just very different to what
I would normally spend my time doing.

[Hilder]
Must've been a hell of an adventure.

It was really interesting.
I strapped on my cowboy boots,

got into character,
got my NRA membership.

- Yeah, you joined the NRA, right?
- I did, yeah.

Just to understand
how these people think,

- like...
- Uh-huh.

I don't want to use guns.

- I'm not really interested in guns at all.
- Yeah.

I felt like I was getting to know...

people that I used to disagree with a lot,

like my grandparents, my aunts,
uncles, cousins.

[Hilder] So this wasn't just an outfit
that you put on, and it felt important?

It was important. It is important.

- [Hilder] Yeah.
- I feel like the main problem

in US politics

is that people are so polarized
that they can't understand each other,

and therefore they can't work together,
and therefore nothing gets done.

- [PA chimes]
- [woman speaking indistinctly on PA]

I am about to draft some questions
for a senator

who will be able to ask them
to Mark Zuckerberg

in the Senate Judiciary hearing
on Tuesday.

"How much of Facebook's revenue

comes directly from the monetization

of users' personal data?"

[chortles] All of it!

Exactly.

The reality is that Facebook knows more
about this

than pretty much anyone in the world

because Facebook is the best platform
on which to run experiments.

- Yeah, it is. Um, it...
- [laughing]

And it actually always gets you
the best engagement rates.

We always spend the majority
amount of money

on any commercial
or political campaign in Facebook.

Always gets the majority of the ad budget.

- It does, it does.
- Yep.

[Hilder] There is at least the possibility
that the American public

and publics in other countries
have been experimented on.

[Kaiser] Remember those Facebook quizzes
that we used

to form personality models
for all voters in the US?

The truth is, we didn't target
every American voter equally.

The bulk of our resources

went into targeting those
whose minds we thought we could change.

We called them "the persuadables."

They're everywhere in the country,

but the persuadables that mattered
were the ones in swing states

like Michigan, Wisconsin,
Pennsylvania, and Florida.

Now, each of these states were broken down
by precinct.

So, you can say
there are 22,000 persuadable voters

in this precinct,

and if we target enough persuadable people
in the right precincts,

then those states would turn red
instead of blue.

Our creative team designed
personalized content

to trigger those individuals.

Terrorists love porous borders.

Widespread gaps
in border security allow terrorists...

[Kaiser] We bombarded them through blogs,
websites, articles, videos, ads,

every platform you can imagine.

Until they saw the world
the way we wanted them to.

[emoji growls]

[Kaiser] Until they voted
for our candidate.

It's like a boomerang.

You send your data out,

it gets analyzed,

and it comes back at you
as targeted messaging

to change your behavior.

[indistinct chatter]

[indistinct announcement over PA]

DCMS Committee announced
the future witnesses

- for a fake news inquiry.
- Yes.

- There you are. You're...
- Me.

- [Hilder] You're the day before Alexander.
- [Kaiser] The former CEO.

He's going the day after me.

Yes. Is it... Is it all feeling a bit real?

[chuckling] It's really intense.

- [sniffles]
- [Hilder] It's real.

- And it's big.
- [Kaiser sighs]

[Cadwalladr] The first time
I wrote about Cambridge Analytica,

it was December 2016.

I said that they'd worked
for the Trump campaign

and for the Brexit campaign.

And I started getting letters
from them saying,

"We never worked for the Leave campaign."

And this was baffling
because on Leave. EU's website,

it said, "We hired Cambridge Analytica."

There were statements from Alexander Nix
about how they worked

for the Leave campaign.

Yeah, I'm afraid we don't talk
about that campaign. At all.

[laughs]

[woman] You didn't? Or you did?

No, no, we don't discuss it.

- [woman] Okay. Not at all.
- [Nix] Yeah.

[Cadwalladr]
And that was when I discovered this video

of Leave. EU's press launch.

And I was like, well, there, look,
it's Brittany Kaiser!

She works for Cambridge Analytica.

She's at the press launch

talking about all the clever things

that they're going to do with data
for the Leave Campaign.

Like, what the fuck?

How can you carry on denying it?
This is nuts!

[Russian national anthem playing]

[Cadwalladr] And it was exactly
the same time

that Leave. EU started posting

the horrible videos of me.

[woman panting]
I've gotta get out of here!

[Cadwalladr] There was a spoof video
of a scene from Airplane!

- [stewardess] Get a hold of yourself!
- [man] Please, let me handle this.

[Cadwalladr] There was like a whole stream
of people going, "Don't be so hysterical!"

And, like, hitting her.

Go back to your seat!
I'll take care of this.

[Cadwalladr]
It was like, "Calm down! Calm down!"

[makes slapping sound]
And, you know, so a whole line of people,

and then the last person's carrying a gun.

And the whole thing they had,

it was set to the music
from the Russian national anthem.

[anthem continues playing]

Ugh.

The day
after that Leave. EU video was put out,

the editor of another news organization
that I was going to do a report for

took me for lunch and said,

"Actually, we think it's too much
of a risk having you present the report."

It is this sort of visceral thing
of living with this disinformation

and this propaganda every single day.

And feeling the effects of it
and knowing that it does work,

it does have an impact in real life,
whether people believe that or not.

You know,
I'm used to just writing stories.

You write it, and then you go on
to the next subject.

I'm a feature writer, that's what I did.
But I was just like, "They've lied."

And they're lying about something
which is actually really massive.

'Cause it's, you know, the...

rest of the future of our country.

- [reporter 1] What do you think, Nigel?
- [reporters murmuring indistinctly]

[Cadwalladr] In the referendum,
most people had very fixed views.

But there was a tiny sliver of people
who didn't.

These were "the persuadables."

It was all about finding
these very few people

and then bombarding them with ads.

This is the thing
which was invisible to all of us.

Let June the 23rd go down in our history
as our independence day!

[loud cheering]

[man 1] The British people have spoken,
and the answer is, "We're out."

[woman 1] For good or for ill,

this decision will define our politics
for years to come.

[woman 2] This great country
has made a terrible mistake.

[man 2]
It's an earthquake that has happened.

And what happens after earthquakes?
We wait to see.

[woman 3] People weren't agreed
on what Leave meant.

- [man 3] It's simple: leave. Full stop.
- [woman 3] Was no manifesto for Leave.

But there is no "leave, full stop..."

[crowd chanting] Brexit! Brexit! Brexit!

[PA chimes]

[woman over PA] In the interest of safety,

parents are advised not to carry children
on baggage trolleys

or allow them to play on the escalators.

- [Kaiser] Hi, Mama!
- [mother on phone] Hey!

I'm through, I'm through,
I'm through, yeah.

So, I managed to get
into the United Kingdom with no issues,

which is really fantastic.

[mother] Well, I just want you
to mentally be okay with this,

'cause what you're doing
is a monumental undertaking.

I know.

And I still fear for your life.

Yeah.

With the powerful people
that are involved...

[Kaiser] Yeah, I know.

You just have to be careful all the time.

[Kaiser] I know, but I can't keep quiet

just because it'll make
powerful people mad.

I know. I know, I know, I know. I know.

I totally get that, you know.

Somebody's always got to bring down
these jerks.

Exactly.

So, you know, anyway.

When I have time off next month,

I've gotta go and put deposits down
on electric and gas.

I don't have $1,000 right now,
so I'll have to wait.

[Kaiser] Well, I could...
I could pay for it. That means...

Oh, don't worry,
I don't need it right now.

All right, honey, you stay healthy.

[Kaiser] Love you.

Be safe, honey. I love you.

[Kaiser] I love you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye, baby.

[Kaiser sighs]

[Kaiser] I'm really happy to be back,

but I don't think I can really do much
going out in public while I'm here.

Last time I left,

I was in a very difficult situation
with a lot of my friends.

- [Kaiser] So fire door number one?
- Yes.

- [man murmurs indistinctly]
- What?

[Kaiser] So many people were so angry
that I was working on the Brexit campaign,

so angry I continued to work for a company

that supported people
like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

And there's still this whole group
of people that are wondering,

am I taking the high road,
or am I doing something to protect myself?

[reporter 1]
More news on Facebook over the weekend,

as Mark Zuckerberg prepares to testify
before Congress

tomorrow and Wednesday.

Earlier this morning,
he announced some new measures

in the company's efforts
to prevent interference in elections...

[low chatter]

[Kaiser gasps] It's today's FT.

My name's at the top of the front page
of the FT.

Oh, shit.

[chuckles] There it is.

"Zuckerberg braced for Congress grilling.

Facebook chief will admit
that the social network did not do enough

to stop its tools being used for harm."

[Carroll] "Facebook should pay its
two billion users for their personal data.

The big tech companies are evolving
into digital kleptocracies.

Yesterday."

[clicks tongue] Um...

I sort of missed the paragraph of, like,

"I helped build this monster

that...

wreaked havoc upon the world
and will take decades to recover from,

and I feel really bad about that."
I don't see that here.

[Kaiser] The data wars have begun.

[camera shutters clicking]

[Carroll] I mean, this is a company
that is a superstate,

and the only nation
that has jurisdiction over it is ours.

[gavel slams on video feed]

[Grassley] The Committees on the Judiciary
and Commerce, Science and Transportation

will come to order.

[Zuckerberg] Chairman Grassley
and members of the committee:

My top priority has always been
our social mission of connecting people,

building community,
and bringing the world closer together.

But it's clear now that we didn't
do enough to prevent these tools

from being used for harm as well.

Before I talk about the steps
we're taking to address them,

I want to talk about how we got here.

When we first contacted
Cambridge Analytica,

they told us
that they had deleted the data.

About a month ago,

we heard new reports
that suggested that wasn't true.

So, we're getting to the bottom
of exactly what Cambridge Analytica did.

[Kaiser] Blame it on me, Mark. Go for it.

...to address this and to prevent it
from happening again.

Thank you for having me here today,
and I'm ready to take your questions.

Well, Mr. Zuckerberg,
during the 2016 campaign,

Cambridge Analytica worked
with the Trump campaign

to refine tactics under Project Alamo.

Were Facebook employees involved in that?

Senator, I don't know that our employees
were involved with Cambridge Analytica.

- Yes, they were.
- Whoa!

[man] Oh, my God.

The Republican team in DC was. I met them.

...although I know that we did help out
the Trump campaign overall

in sales support in the same way
that we do with other campaigns.

So, they may have been involved

and all working together
during that time period?

Maybe that's something
your investigation will find out.

Senator, I can certainly
have my team get back to you

on any specifics there
that I don't know sitting here today.

Oh, my God. This is the whole point
of the hearing, you...

- [Cantwell] Know what I'm talking about?
- No, I do not.

[Cantwell] Okay.

[man] It can go to you.

Do you think the 87 million users,
do you consider them victims?

Uh, Senator, I think...

Uh...

Yes. I mean, they... they did not want
their information to be

sold to Cambridge Analytica
by a developer. And... And...

that happened.

And it happened on our watch.

So even though we didn't do it,

I think we have a responsibility
to be able to prevent that

and be able to take action sooner.

One of the steps that we need to take now

is go do a full audit
of all of Cambridge Analytica's systems

to understand what they're doing,
whether they still have any data...

[man 1] Obviously, Facebook has been done
considerable reputational damage

by its association
with Cambridge Analytica.

[woman 1]
...process by which Cambridge Analytica...

[woman 2]
...relates to Cambridge Analytica...

[man 2] The recent stories
about Cambridge Analytica

- and data mining...
- [hearing continues indistinctly]

[man] Look at how many people
are posting Zuckerberg...

- [Kaiser] Everyone's watching this.
- [man] Oh, my God.

- [Kaiser] And the whole thing just says...
- [man] Wow.

[Kaiser]...Cambridge, Cambridge,
Cambridge.

[no audible dialogue]

[Kaiser] I never thought
everyone in the world

would know who Cambridge Analytica was.

[Zuckerberg hearing
continues indistinctly]

[Wheatland]
I learnt many things from that period.

I learnt, for example,
that when you're in a PR crisis,

the one thing that you can't hire
is a PR crisis company.

We spoke to...

[sighs]...tens of PR crisis companies
that listened intently,

went away to think about it,
and came back and said,

"Sorry, we can't associate ourselves
with your brand." [chuckles]

Um... And actually, I thought
that's what they were there, um, for.

And so it became impossible to, um...
to get a voice.

The reason that we've called
this news conference today

is to begin to counter
some of the unfounded allegations

and, frankly, the torrent of ill-informed
and inaccurate speculation.

Do you think what was done was illegal?

We think it is probably illegal

according to UK law,
and that's what we're challenging.

We do have a statement
from Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge said,

"David Carroll has no more right
to submit this request

than a member of the Taliban
sitting in a cave in Afghanistan."

[Wheatland] And it came like a tsunami.

There were 35,000 media stories per day.

They wanted to discredit Trump,

they wanted to discredit Brexit,

and we were the vehicle for doing it.

Do you feel
that you have skewed democracy?

By providing campaign services
to a candidate who'd been fairly nominated

as the Republican representative
of the United States?

How is that possible?

[Wheatland]
Cambridge Analytica became responsible

for pretty much everything
that was wrong in the world.

Are you saying
that Cambridge Analytica lies?

They knowingly misrepresent the truth.

What's your proof of that?

I was there.

[Wheatland]
Chris Wylie spoke with great authority

about what had gone on
in Cambridge Analytica and SCL

during 2015 and 2016,

at a time when he was never there.

He had worked for the company
for nine months, left in 2014.

He then went out and pitched
the Trump campaign,

and lost to us.

Chris Wylie set out to kill the company.

[man] And what about Brittany?

I don't know what Brittany was doing.

Brittany was someone that...

I thought was a friend,
I know Alexander thought was a friend.

But, you know,

when the world gets turned upside down,

people behave in different ways.

Maybe even they don't understand

why they're doing what they're doing
at the time.

[Hilder] I would strongly recommend
that we start doing testimony prep.

Uh, go through the emails together,

maybe go through other stuff
and hash out what's there.

[Kaiser]
Oh, my God. I have my entire calendar.

[whispers] Shit. Shit.

- [Hilder] You have your entire calendar?
- I have my entire calendar.

Oh, my God.

[Hilder] Downloaded?

[Kaiser] I didn't think that
that was going to still link. [gasps]

That's amazing.

I can actually do an entire timeline
of everything, if that's the case.

[Hilder] A timeline is great.

[whispers] Fuck, look at this.

[chuckles] September 2015.

US Chamber of Commerce...

Meeting at...

Leave.EU. That was fun. Run-through.

[Hilder] It's all here.

I know exactly when everything happened.

Always. Forever.

[Kaiser] I didn't realize how much I had.

I've got much more than that,

it's just those are the things I forwarded
that I think are worthwhile.

[elevator bell dings]

[Kaiser] Did you get the chance
to look through all of that?

[Hilder] I went through most of it.
I'll look through more of it today.

[Kaiser] Let me get out
one of the pitches. Um...

- [keyboard clacking]
- "CA Political."

What is this?

This looks mental.

This is a list of, like,
the main sources of data.

And look, it's got that fucking Facebook
data set of 30 million individuals.

It just says it in there! [exclaims]

What the fuck!

[whispers] Oh, my God.

- [Hilder] February...
- [Kaiser] Created February 4th, 2016!

That was after we said to Facebook
that we deleted that shit!

This is the 30 million individuals

that we got their data
through Professor Kogan.

That's that.

And it admits to it right here,
"Our data makes us different,"

because we're scraping people's profiles,
and other people are not.

Fuck.

[chuckles]
I forgot about this stuff, you know?

There's just so much stuff.

[Nix] ...we seek to do as a firm.

We are a behavior change agency.

The holy grail of communications is

when you can start to change behavior.

Uh, Trinidad. This is a great,
interesting case history

of how we look at problems.

[folk music playing]

[Nix]
There are two main political parties,

one for the blacks
and one for the Indians.

And you know, they screw each other.

So, we were working for the Indians.

We went to the client and we said,
"We want to target the youth."

And we try and increase apathy.

The campaign had to be non-political,

because the kids
don't care about politics.

It had to be reactive,
because they're lazy.

So we came up with this campaign,
which was all about:

Be part of the gang. Do something cool.

Be part of a movement.

And it was called the "Do So!" campaign.

[Kaiser]
It means "I'm not going to vote."

[Nix] "Do so! Don't vote."

[crowd cheering]

[man] The salute of resistance

that is known to all
across Trinidad and Tobago.

Do So! Do So!

- Do So!
- [crowd continues cheering]

[Nix] It's a sign of resistance against,
not the government,

against politics and voting.

- ♪ Run with it, run with it ♪
- ♪ Run, run ♪

- ♪ Run with it, run with it ♪
- ♪ Run, run ♪

[Nix]
They're making their own YouTube videos.

This is the prime minister's house
that's being graffitied.

It was carnage.

[Nix]
We knew that when it came to voting,

all the Afro-Caribbean kids wouldn't vote,

because they Do So!

But all the Indian kids would do
what their parents told them to do,

which is go out and vote.

They had a lot of fun doing this,

but they're not gonna go
against their parents' will.

[fireworks crackling]

[overlapping shouts]

Thank God for the guidance
that has brought us here to this victory.

Thank you. Thank you, God.

[Nix] And the difference in
18-to 35-year-old turnout was like 40%.

And that swung the election about 6%,

which was all we needed
in an election that's very close.

We now undertake ten national campaigns
for prime minister or president each year.

Malaysia, we're working in.

[Kaiser] We did Lithuania, Romania,
Kenya, Ghana.

- [Nix] So quite a few this year.
- [Kaiser] Nigeria.

- [man] The Brexit campaign?
- [Nix] Oh, and the Brexit campaign, yeah.

But we don't talk about that.

[Kaiser] Oops, we won!

[laughter]

[man] Do you worry at all
that she might let you down?

[sighs]

Look, um...

[sighs]

That is a good question.

I know already that she is
a complicated person, uh,

who has...

you know, done some complicated things.

Uh...

I believe in redemption.

[chuckles]

Uh, individual redemption
and collective... uh, social redemption.

Uh, I'm an idealist.
I think we can fix stuff that's broken,

uh, and, at the same time,

I am a realist about the fact
that you can't fix everything. Um...

You know, some things get broken
and stay broken.

Good morning,
welcome to this further session

of the Digital, Culture,
Media and Sport Select Committee.

Very pleased to welcome Brittany Kaiser
to give evidence to

the committee this morning.

Now, there was a contact between Facebook
and Cambridge Analytica

about the use of data in,
I think it was 2015, from memory.

Did you know about that at the time?

Uh, so Facebook had announced
to all of their clients

that they were going to close
their clients' access to this data,

so we agreed to delete it,

but in March 2016,

you know, six or eight weeks after

our chief data officer said
that those data sets were deleted,

I have an email from one
of our senior data scientists

that said that we were actually using
Facebook Like data in our modeling.

Ooh.

- [Kaiser] So that seems strange to me.
- Uh-oh.

[Kaiser] If we had deleted
all of the Facebook data sets,

how we were still using that
for modeling in March.

Ms. Kaiser, you seem to have traveled
a long way from an idealistic intern

in Barack Obama's campaign,

uh, to working for a company
that keeps pretty unsavory company,

uh, in wishing to make pitches
to far-right political parties.

- Mm-hmm.
- [man] Didn't that make you uncomfortable?

Uh, yes.

I would say questioning the ethics of it
is correct, definitely.

But I have been offered introductions
to clients

that I refused to meet with before,

um, such as the Alternative for Germany
and Marine Le Pen's campaign.

I refused to even get on a phone call
with them.

But not UKIP?

Not UKIP, no.

Um, did you appear and give a presentation
to the launch of Leave. EU?

Yes, I did.

[Matheson] Um, you must've been a bit, um,
disappointed then

when you subsequently
didn't do any work for them.

And we didn't do any further work for them
after that day, yes.

[Matheson] So you had done some work.

What was the nature of the work
that you had done so far?

We had taken receipt

of UK Independence Party data
and the survey data.

She's, like, contradicting Nix a lot,
what he said previously.

So, I think you've been quite clear,
as far as you're concerned,

you were working on the campaign,
but just not being paid for it?

- Mm-hmm.
- [Collins] You're pretty clear on that.

Just to clarify, for our benefit,

to be effective in this space,

how big a kind of working set do you need

to be able to then
use that to create the basis

for targeting the whole country
in terms of voting?

I'm not a data scientist,
so I wouldn't be able to say

the minimum number
of data points that you would require,

uh, but I do know
that their targeting tool

used to be export-controlled
by the British government,

so that would mean that
the methodology was considered a weapon.

Um, weapons-grade communications tactics.

What you're saying is that the proposal
was for Leave. EU to use what you call

weapons-grade communications techniques
against the UK population?

- [Kaiser] Yes, sir.
- It's crazy.

[O'Hara] Uh, I just want to get
your perspective as well.

What do you actually think
the legislators should do

in order to better protect people's data?

[Kaiser] Well, I'm very glad that
you asked that. Think about it right now.

The sole worth of Google and Facebook

is the fact that they own, and possess,
and hold, and use

the personal data
of people from all around the world.

So I think that the best way
to move forward

are for people to really possess
their data like their property.

- [O'Hara] Thank you, Chair.
- [Collins] Thank you.

Um, I think that concludes the questions
from us today.

Just before we close the session,

I just have to make a short announcement
about Alexander Nix.

He's now not able to give evidence
to the Committee tomorrow

as a consequence of him having been served
with an information notice

and being subject
to the criminal investigation

by the Information Commissioner's Office.

And I hope we'll be able to update people

about that early next week.
Thank you very much.

Thank you.

[Carroll] Shit!

[woman] The proceeding has ended.

Yes, it has!

[laughs]

[indistinct chatter]

[upbeat music playing over speakers]

I just got a text from Alexander.

[chuckles] Alexander Nix.

[man] What did he say?

"Well done, Britt.
Looked quite tough, and you did okay."

With a winky face little emoji.

It makes me kind of sad.
You know what I mean?

Like, it's not like he spent
three and a half years

being an asshole to me. He didn't.

[Hilder] He spent three and a half years
being nice to you

to get you to do what he wanted you to do.

Yeah. But he is rather fun. [laughs]

- [phone vibrates]
- [Hilder] I know, I know.

[Carroll] Hey, Justin.

[Justin over phone]
Hey, what's up? What did you think?

I'm processing it.
There were a lot of revelations.

SCL has to file its defense
at the end of the month,

so, it'll be really interesting
to see, like,

what they think they can do,
especially after this.

[Justin] That's right.

[Carroll] I mean, shit.

She said that basically psychographics
should be classified as a weapon.

It seems like Kaiser has
some moral compass in her.

But, so many times,
she knew that she was

in a dark world

and didn't step away.

And they... they got... got her on that
a couple of times.

Yeah.

[interviewer] You did work for a man who,
upon meeting you,

said to you, you know,
"Let me get you drunk

and steal your secrets."

You knew the kind of company
that you were working for.

I don't know. I guess I trusted him.

I worked for him
for three and a half years.

He was a friend and mentor. I mean...

He actually just sent me a text,

although I haven't spoken to him in,
I don't know, at least over a month.

[interviewer] So, he was watching you.

- He watched, yes.
- [interviewer] What did he say?

He said that it looked pretty tough
but that I did a good job.

- [interviewer] Did you reply?
- No.

[interviewer] Will you?

No, I don't think that's appropriate
at this time.

[interviewer]
So, there's no friendship there?

Well, I now question, you know,
how much of a friendship it actually was.

[Cadwalladr] The thing which
I give Brittany credit for...

it's really amazed me how many people
are just keeping their mouths shut.

I mean, it was a jaw-dropping moment

when Brittany said these are classified
as weapons-grade technology.

And it was actually illegal to use those

without the permission
of the British government.

It's psyops.

Psyops is psychological operations.

And it's a...
it's a term that the military uses

to describe what you do in warfare
which isn't warfare.

So, essentially, you know,

in a place like Afghanistan,
you've got a choice.

You either bomb the shit out of a village

or you try and use other techniques

to persuade them that actually,
"The Taliban's not very good,

and you'd be much better off
without them."

SCL started out as a military contractor.

SCL Defense.

[Nix] We have a fairly substantial
defense business.

We actually train the British Army,
the British Navy,

the U.S. Army, U.S. Special Forces.

We train NATO, the CIA,
State Department, Pentagon.

It's using research to influence behavior
of hostile audiences.

You know, how do you persuade
14-to 30-year-old Muslim boys

not to join Al-Qaeda?

Essentially communication warfare.

- [man] Allahu Akbar!
- [all] Allahu Akbar!

[Cadwalladr] They'd worked
in Afghanistan, they'd worked in Iraq,

they'd worked in various places
in Eastern Europe.

But the real game changer

was they started using information warfare
in elections.

[Nix] There's a lot of overlap,
because it's all the same methodology.

[Cadwalladr] All of the campaigns
which Cambridge Analytica/SCL did

for the developing world,

it was all about practicing
some new technology or trick.

How to persuade people,

how to suppress turnout,
or how to increase turnout.

And then it's like,

"Okay, now we've got the hang of it,
let's use it in Britain and America."

[Nix]

[overlapping restaurant chatter]

[man] Yes.

...and expands, but with no branding,

so it's unattributable, untrackable.

- [applause]
- And my view...

is that if you can't run your own house,

- you certainly can't run the White House.
- [crowd cheering]

- Can't do it.
- [cheering]

[Trump] Crooked Hillary, right? Crooked.
She's crooked as you can be.

[crowd chanting]
Lock her up! Lock her up!

[man] Yep, that's right, lock her up!

Lock her up! Lock her up!

Lock her up! Lock her up!

[crowd continues shouting]

Let's defeat her in November.

[man] What was it like for you to watch

the Channel 4 undercover video?

Nobody recognized it.

When we watched that video...

I watched it in the New York office
with, um, all the staff there.

And we knew it was coming out.

And I think everybody was...

in a state of shock.

Everybody walked away from the screen
in silence back to their desks.

[reporter 1] Tonight, an undercover
interview by Channel 4 News in London

shows Cambridge executives,

including CEO Alexander Nix,

boasting about the company's role
in Trump's win.

This series of undercover interviews
by Channel 4 News

also caught Nix on tape

talking about potential bribery
and entrapment.

[man] I don't understand.

[reporter 1] Mr. Nix, can I ask you
what your message is

to Cambridge Analytica employees today?

[reporter 2] We've just got a statement
from Cambridge Analytica.

Alexander Nix has been suspended
with immediate effect.

The company accused of harvesting the data
of more than 87 million Facebook users

says it is shutting down.

The company says it intends to file
for bankruptcy in the US and the UK.

[reporter]
Critics believe Cambridge Analytica

and SCL Elections
may be shutting operations

to limit or restrict the ability
of the authority's investigations

and also to get rid of evidence.

[Wheatland]
The Cambridge Analytica scandal,

is it now the Facebook scandal?

I mean, this is not about one company.

This technology is going on unabated
and will continue to go on.

But Cambridge Analytica's gone.

In some senses, I feel that, um...

that because of the way
that this technology is moving so fast,

and because people
don't really understand it,

and because there's a lot of concerns
about it,

there was always going to be
a Cambridge Analytica.

It just sucks for me
it was Cambridge Analytica.

[Cadwalladr]
After we dealt with the threats

from Cambridge Analytica
over the course of a year,

then the thing which made
our heads explode

was the day before publication,
when we got a letter from Facebook.

Yeah, it felt like an attempt
to... to cow us into submission.

It didn't feel like a sort of...

To me, it didn't feel like
a legitimate response...

And you sort of go, you know,
why is a great, big organization like you

using UK lawyers?

And again, a very aggressive threat

for which, actually, they then...
Didn't they apologize?

Yes,
they said it was not their finest hour.

- [all laugh]
- [Cadwalladr] Yeah.

And up until that point,

it was like the tech giants were still,
like,

the nice guys who wear hoodies,

- who connected the world.
- [Phillips] Yep.

And there was a shift away

from big tech being good

to saying well, actually,
we do need to start asking questions

about this and what it is.

[Cadwalladr] Cambridge Analytica is gone,

but it's really important to understand
that the Cambridge Analytica story

actually points to this much bigger,
more worrying story

which is that our personal data
is out there and being used against us

in ways we don't understand.

And if David gets his data back,

we can hopefully start
getting some answers.

[Carroll] The deadline is today for SCL
to comply with the law

and give me my data.

We're at the precipice of evasion
or accountability.

Carole tweeted,

"Prof. Carroll also giving evidence
to European Parliament today

on day of deadline for Cambridge Analytica
to turn over his data to him.

If it fails to do so, it becomes
a matter for criminal proceedings."

[Carroll]
"Hey Ravi, have you heard anything?"

"Not yet."

I've been waiting to hear from my lawyer,
and we have heard nothing.

And so they have not respected
the regulator.

They are not respecting the law.

So now that this is becoming
a criminal matter,

we are now in uncharted waters.

And I will continue to pursue it

because their model has the potential
to affect a population

even if it's just a tiny slice
of the population,

because in the United States,

only about 70,000 voters in three states
decided the election.

Thank you very much,
um, Professor Carroll. Um...

Mr. Batten.

[Batten] My question is
for Carole Cadwalladr from The Guardian.

Is The Guardian's stand
on this a purely politically partisan one

in its own intention to assist
in any way that it can

to reverse and overturn
the result of the referendum?

This is not a partisan issue,
I cannot say that more strongly.

This is about the integrity
of our democracy.

It's about our national sovereignty.

And I would think that you would have
an interest in that also.

[pounding applause]

I think that we desperately need
more information,

because we don't how people were targeted

and we don't know what data
that was based upon.

One thing we do know is that Facebook
has been obstructive in its efforts

to help the British Parliament
investigate this matter.

Uh, really, really, really,
you've got to, like, look higher

and really see the bigger issue here

and the bigger picture
and the bigger risks to us all.

[applause]

[reporter] Roger, even if, uh, Facebook
hasn't broken any laws,

have they broken a sort of moral trust
that they have with their consumers?

Well, I... They have with me.

I mean, I spent three months,
starting in October 2016, trying to say,

"Guys, I think you're killing democracy,
and you're gonna kill your business."

- Hi, how are you? I'm Roger.
- Hi, how are you?

- [McNamee] Pleasure to meet you.
- Pleasure to meet you.

Facebook is designed
to monopolize attention.

Just taking all of the basic tricks
of propaganda,

marrying them to the tricks
of casino gambling.

You know, slot machines and the like.

And basically playing on instincts,

and fear and anger are the two
most dependable ways of doing that.

And so, they created a set of tools

to allow advertisers to exploit
that emotional audience

with individual-level targeting, right?

There's 2.1 billion people,
each with their own reality.

And once everybody has their own reality,

- it's relatively easy to manipulate them.
- Mmm. Yeah.

And the other thing about this is,
they know that it's killing me...

- [Kaiser] Yeah.
- ...to be critical

of what I've viewed as my baby.

It is a lot easier to just sort of say,
"I'm not gonna think about it."

[Hilder] Yes.

- But...
- [Kaiser] Yeah.

...you get tested in your life
a few times, right? And...

for me, this was one of those moments.

I was either gonna stand up
and do something about this,

or I wasn't gonna stand up
and do anything about anything. Right?

Because my fingerprints are on this thing.

- [Kaiser] I know.
- I mean, I felt really guilty.

And I just want to be able to...

sleep at night.

[Hilder] One of the things
that I was really struck by was...

what happened with you

and the Obama people
and the Hillary people.

[Kaiser] Uh, none of them ever wanted
to offer to pay me.

And, um,
when your family loses all their money

and loses their family home

and your father,
who's the main breadwinner,

has brain surgery
and can never work again,

you have to work for people that pay you.

[thunder rumbles]

[Hilder]
Your family lost their money in 2008?

Um, yeah, but it took a while
for it all to really fall apart.

- [man] Yeah.
- Um...

We lost our family home in 2014,
when I started working for Cambridge.

[reporter 1] Alexander Nix appears
before Parliament's Media Committee

after previously refusing to testify

due to law enforcement investigations
into the firm.

[overlapping questions]

- Hi, Jo, how are you?
- Hello.

[Carroll] The last time I was in London,

I remember considering challenging SCL

and running through my head, like,
how scary it was.

The Committee's very grateful, uh,
to Alexander Nix

for agreeing to come back
in front of the committee today

to answer our questions...

[Carroll] Now, to be back here and, uh...

these guys are down for the count and...

the villain is up against the wall.

[chuckles] You know,
does he have any allies left in the world

or has everybody turned against him?

[sighs] Right.

I'd like to make
a few short clarifications.

Um, these will only take a few minutes,

uh, but it is important
to be able to frame, uh, my answers.

He's so nervous.

Mr. Nix, I'd be grateful if you'd start
with the committee's questions

and then see how we go
through the hearing.

Ordinarily, uh, I would respect that,
but these aren't ordinary circumstances,

and so, if I may, I'd like to start
with a very brief statement

just to set out my position.

I would rather take this
on a question by question basis

rather than being dealt with
as a statement at the beginning.

Mr. Collins,
you'll have plenty of opportunity,

as will all the Committee,
to ask me as many questions as you want,

but I have to insist on...

- How could you possibly start like that...
- [Collins] It's not your place to insist.

"I accept that some of my answers
could have been clearer..."

[Collins] So, instead,
you're just reading out the statement.

- Can you answer the first question...
- Why is he doing that?

- Could you repeat your first question?
- [Collins] Yes, thank you.

You did pitch to work on the Referendum,

and I don't want to dwell on Leave. EU
because you've made your position clear.

We're really scratching around here,
Mr. Farrelly. Um...

We've been working, or I've been working
with this company for 15 years. Um...

We've never undertaken an election
in the UK.

[Collins] Well, I was...

- I hope I wasn't scratching around.
- That is not true.

[Collins] I was comparing what you told us
with the evidence

that's subsequently emerged,

- and you clearly felt...
- [phone chimes, vibrates]

...that the work that you've done, uh...
[stammers, continues indistinctly]

[Kaiser] So, I got an email from Carole.

She knows that I met Julian Assange
in February.

[chuckles] Um...

And she knows that I donated to WikiLeaks
at some point in Bitcoin.

If she prints something about it today,
it's going to make...

my conversations with my own government
really difficult.

[Collins] Um, it came up
in Brittany Kaiser's evidence,

because you spoke to us about, uh,
Julian Assange the last time you came,

saying that you made an attempt
to gain access to the emails

that Julian Assange had, um,

the Hillary Clinton emails,
in order to benefit your client,

the Trump campaign.

Well, these were very contentious emails,
potentially...

- [Collins] Yeah.
- ...and we wanted to understand...

as did every journalist

and, I would say,
most political consultants

on both sides of the aisle
in the United States,

um, what was contained in them.

[stammers] I don't think that curiosity
is indicative of anything nefarious.

- [hearing continues indistinctly]
- Oh, my God. Carole published the article.

I didn't discuss the US election!

- Oh, my God, this is insane!
- [phone ringing]

Paul!

- [Paul] Hello, how are you!
- Paul!

I have said to you, it's all coming out,

and the question is how.

I didn't conspire
to leak Hillary's emails,

and I have nothing... [clears throat]
...to do with Russia, so...

[Paul] Yes.

The fact is...

[clears throat]

- ...it looks like I did both.
- Does it look like you did both?

If I wasn't me, I would say yes,
that's what it looks like!

- [chuckles nervously]
- [Paul laughs]

That's why I'm freaking out.

There's gonna be so many people
that literally never believe me.

I will die
with people still not believing me.

- Uh, that is possible.
- [chuckles]

- That is definitely possible. [laughs]
- I know!

Agh! [slams table]

All right...

[Kaiser sniffles] I think I need
to get the fuck out of here.

[O'Hara] From where I'm sitting,
since you've come here today,

you have attempted to paint yourself
as the victim here,

though, by no stretch of the imagination
can you be seen as a victim.

Surely you can see that
you are not the victim here.

[Nix] What if I was the victim?

What happens if, as some
of these investigations are concluded,

people realize
that actually we were simply...

the guys who were, uh,
perceived to have contributed

to the Trump campaign

and were wrongly accredited
with being the architects of Brexit

and as a result of the polarizing nature
of those two political campaigns,

the global liberal media took umbrage

and decided to put us in their crosshairs

and launch a coordinated attack on us
as a company

in order to destroy our reputations
and our business,

and all of this was underpinned
by a stream of allegations,

unfounded, groundless allegations
that came from Mr. Wylie,

who gave the media
the ammunition that they needed...

that they wanted,

to be able to attack us for something
that, in the case of Brexit,

we simply didn't do.

[O'Hara]
So you are the victim in all of this.

Well, if you're sitting where I am
right now, you'd probably feel...

uh... [stammers]

...quite victimized.

Where the fuck is my passport?

[exhales]

Not having a good day right now.

Did I put it somewhere else?

[sighs] Oh, my God.

I've never put it there before in my life.

Not that I'm thinking straight today,
so...

[sighs]

I'm flustered. Sorry, guys.

Coco Mademoiselle makes me feel better.

At least I smell good.

I have no idea what's gonna happen
in the next coming days.

I literally came back here
because I wanted to be cooperative,

I want to help.

[low, indistinct radio chatter]

[reporter] Today, The Guardian newspaper
in Britain reports

that a senior executive
at Cambridge Analytica

met with Julian Assange from WikiLeaks,

which is the entity that distributed
the documents that Russia had stolen.

She says they discussed the US election.

[Kaiser] The Mueller investigation called
when I booked my flight

and they decided to issue a subpoena.

We were talking to them
in a very, like, friendly, cooperative way

and then Carole's article completely
changed the way that they see me.

And, yeah, I...

worked at Cambridge Analytica

while they had Facebook data sets.

And, you know, I...

went to Russia one time
while I worked for Cambridge.

I visited Julian Assange
while I worked for Cambridge.

I once donated to WikiLeaks.

I pitched the Trump campaign
and wrote the first contract.

Like, all of these things
make it look like I am...

at the center of some big, crazy thing.

And I see that,
and I can't argue with that.

I might need to rethink the way
that I've been doing things

for the past few years.

[Cadwalladr] This is a story
which we haven't published yet

talking about all the investigations

which have been kicked off
in Britain and the US

since the story came out.

So, there's an investigation by the FBI,

by the US, the SEC,

by the Department of Justice,

by Robert Mueller,

and by the Senate Intelligence Committee,

the Judiciary Committee,
the House Intelligence Committee.

And then these are all the ones
which are going on

which are connected in Britain.

Parliament spent 18 months investigating.

They called in all these witnesses.

And at the end of it,
their report says very clearly,

"Our electoral laws are not fit
for purpose."

We literally cannot have
a free and fair election in this country.

And we can't have it because of Facebook,

because of the tech giants
who are still completely unaccountable.

It sounds, like, quite apocalyptic.

But it does feel like we are entering
into a whole new era.

We can see that authoritarian governments
are on the rise.

And they're all using these politics
of hate and fear on Facebook.

- Look at Brazil.
- [crowd cheering]

[Cadwalladr]
There's this right-wing extremist

who's been elected.

And we know that WhatsApp,
which is a part of Facebook,

was really clearly implicated
in the dissemination of fake news there.

And look at what happened in Myanmar.

There is evidence that Facebook was used

to incite racial hatred

which caused a genocide.

We also know that the Russian government
was using Facebook's tools in the US.

There's evidence that Russian intelligence
created fake Black Lives Matter memes.

And when people clicked on them,
they were taken to pages

where they were actually invited
to protests

that were organized
by the Russian government.

- [crowd chants] Justice! Now!
- [man] When do we want it?

[Cadwalladr] At the same time,
they were setting up pages

targeting adversary groups,
like Blue Lives Matter.

It's about stoking fear and hate

to turn the country against itself.

Divide and conquer.

[overlapping shouts]

White power!

Fascist and proud!

[overlapping protests]

[chanting]
Fuck Donald Trump! Fuck Donald Trump!

[Cadwalladr] These platforms
which were created to connect us

have now been weaponized.

And it's impossible to know what is what

because it's happening
on exactly the same platforms

that we chat to our friends
or share baby photos.

Nothing is what it seems.

- [Kaiser] Hi, how are you?
- [man] Doing wonderful, yourself?

I'm all right.

Um, I stayed here last week
and I checked in a suitcase and two bags.

And I had to go to the airport and just,
like, left.

So my bags have been here for a week.

[reporter] My guest, Carole Cadwalladr,

writes for the British newspapers
The Observer and The Guardian.

Can you just say a little bit more
about the Facebook data?

[Cadwalladr] This thing of the data,
so how Americans were targeted,

and what they were targeted with,

is a sort of key part
of Mueller's investigation.

[Kaiser] I am headed to Washington, DC,

for my testimony
for the Mueller investigation.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[Kaiser] I definitely didn't think
that while we're sitting there

counting votes on our data screen

that some of those votes

were made by people
who had seen fake news stories

paid for by Russia on their Facebook page.

Maybe I wanted to believe

that Cambridge Analytica
was just the best.

It's a convenient story to believe.

[indistinct announcement over PA]

...service down to our nation's capital,
Washington Reagan DC airport.

[Kaiser] I don't think it's possible
to shed any of this.

You can't really
put something like this behind you.

"Youth engagement, persuasion...

apathy."

[Nix] Malaysia, we're working in.

[Kaiser] We did Lithuania, Romania,
Kenya, Ghana.

[Nix] Oh, and the Brexit campaign, yeah.

But we don't talk about that.

- [Kaiser] Oops, we won!
- [laughter on recording]

Listening to this now,
it just sounds like...

a criminal admitting to everything
he’s done wrong around the world.

You know?

I'm just there,
nervously laughing along with him,

letting it happen.

[chuckles]

As I said, it's the opposite of what
I've worked my whole life to do.

So...

it makes me angry at myself that
I could sit through a meeting like that...

and not quit directly afterwards,

basically.

What was I doing?

[reporter] What investigators
have you been talking to?

I'm currently working
to be as helpful as possible

to any government investigations
where I can provide assistance,

but I can't comment on that right now
while they're ongoing.

[woman over PA] At this time,
you may use your cellular service.

However, larger electronic devices
must remain stowed.

[Hilder] Brittany made mistakes.

But I think it was very brave of her

to come out and then to keep cooperating

and not to walk away.

She is one of two people

who has blown the whistle
in any serious way on Cambridge Analytica.

We're all responsible.

So the question is,
what do we do with that responsibility?

Can we embrace it?

[Kaiser] Happy that it's finally happening

so that I can just tell people
what happened and get everything...

on record

for this government, my government.
[chuckles]

[reporter] You remember, though,
Cambridge Analytica.

Its big claim in 2016

was that it had access to voter data

on all of the people voting
in the US election.

Well, just one of the 157 million people
who voted in that election,

a man called David Carroll,
asked them a very simple question:

"Can I see the data you have on me?"

And they refused to give it to him.

But crucially, today,
Cambridge Analytica pled guilty

at Hendon Magistrates' Court
for failing to comply with the ICO notice.

[Carroll] The Cambridge Analytica case
is behind me now.

They pleaded guilty
for not giving me my data,

and I'll probably never get it back.

By the time my daughter is 18,

she'll have 70,000 data points
defining her,

and currently she has no rights,

no control over that at all.

But the battle continues.

[applause]

I don't have to tell you

that there is this dark undertow

which is connecting us all globally.

And it is flowing
via the technology platforms.

And that is why I am here

to address you directly,
the Gods of Silicon Valley.

[audience cheers and applauds]

Mark Zuckerberg,

and Sheryl Sandberg,

and Larry Page, and Sergey Brin,

and Jack Dorsey.

Because you set out to connect people

and you are refusing to acknowledge

that this same technology
is now driving us apart.

And what you don't seem to understand

is that this is bigger than you,
and it's bigger than any of us.

And it is not about left or right,
or leave or remain, or Trump or not.

It's about whether it's actually possible

to have a free and fair election
ever again.

And so my question to you is:
Is this what you want?

Is this how you want history
to remember you?

As the handmaidens to authoritarianism?

And my question to everybody else is,
is this what we want?

To sit back and play with our phones
as this darkness falls?

Who is logged into Facebook right now?

Almost everybody.

So, as individuals,

we can limit the flood of data
that we're leaking all over the place.

But there's no silver bullet.
There's no way to go off the grid.

So, you have to understand

how your data is affecting your life.

Our dignity as humans is at stake.

[overlapping shouts of protest]

[Carroll]
But the hardest part in all of this...

[Trump] Got a lot of rough people
in those caravans. They are not a...

[Carroll]
...is that these wreckage sites...

- [people screaming]
- ...and crippling divisions...

begin with the manipulation
of one individual.

Then another.

And another.

So, I can't help but ask myself:

Can I be manipulated?

Can you?