A pretty good item on Newsnight yesterday for a change. G Gatehouse investigated the old Cambridge Analytica (CA) story already puffed a good deal in Graun and Observer by one C Cadwallader (see blog item below). Cadwallder appeared, but Gatehouse got an interesting last word
This time, the connections between the various bogies like Breitbart, Farage, and Trump did not quite all converge on Cambridge Analytica, although some suspicion remained (sic) about dubious flows of money.
However, some sceptics appeared on the programme too. CA had initially supported T Cruz's run for US President, and that fizzled of course. Only then did they transfer to Trump, and the CA CEO adnitted they had not had time to develop their instruments very well for the Donald. A member of Cruz's team expressed some disappointment about CA's claims to deliver effective voter profiles --he said they offered bullshit.
An endorsement from famed UK psychologist B Gunter was also a tad ambiguous. He explained how it could all work very well -- you do personality tests and then correlate these with preferences expressed on things like social media, so you can then target likely voters. It was just asserted that 'personality' affects actual voting behaviour, and no-one asked how you get the information about social media use --belonging to Facebook groups was one suggestion, but then you hardly need CA to tell you to target FB groups that openly support your cause.
However, even Gunter parted with CA. He was a bit vague but it was something to do with their lack of rigour in either devising or applying the tests.
Overall, Gatehouse was able to suggest to the 'old Etonian' founder and CEO of CA (his schooling was mentioned several times) that the whole thing was a con -- indignantly denied of course, but the possibility is in the air at last. Or on the air.
Well done Newsnight!
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