How Cambridge Analytica Opened the Pandora’s Box of Disinformation

In this episode of In Reality, Eric Schurenberg hosts Brittany Kaiser, best known as one of the whistleblowers at Cambridge Analytica, the British political consulting firm that worked on the disinformation-laden 2016 campaigns behind Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Having disavowed her former employer, she is now a much sought-after expert on data privacy, blockchain technology, and legislative reform meant to counter disinformation campaigns. 

Much of the conversation focuses on Brittany’s tenure as director of business development at Cambridge Analytica. Brittany describes the firm’s techniques of creating psychological profiles of voters and then micro-targeting false or misleading messages to them. She explains how her former employer’s voter suppression strategies were categorically different–morally, legally and tactically–from commercial targeted advertising campaigns. 

Finally, they delve into Brittany’s Own Your Data Foundation, a not-for-profit dedicated to raising the DQ (Digital Intelligence) of lawmakers, students, parents and voters and minimizing the existential risks of fake news, cyber attacks, disinformation and polarization–the demons that Cambridge Analytica helped unleash to the detriment of democracy in 2016. 

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Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
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Alliance for Trust in Media
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