Hi there,

In this chaotic news cycle it may be tempting to tune out, but we hope you won’t—only an informed and engaged public can defend democracy. In these times of deep political polarization we need news that goes beyond play-by-play headlines, news that goes to the heart of each story by asking people to tell their own stories of abuses of power and injustice in their own words. If our journalism is important to you, please donate today. Every dollar makes a difference. Thank you so much.

Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Whistleblower Says Steve Bannon Sought to Suppress Black Vote

HeadlineMay 17, 2018

On Capitol Hill, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that the voter-profiling company sought to suppress turnout among African-American voters and preyed on racial biases. Wylie testified that Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of up to 87 million Facebook users, without their permission, and used the data to “fight a culture war.” Cambridge Analytica was founded by billionaire Robert Mercer. Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon of Breitbart News was one of the company’s key strategists. Wylie said he left the company due to efforts to disengage voters and target African Americans.

Chris Wylie: “Cambridge Analytica sought to identify mental vulnerabilities in voters and worked to exploit them by targeting information designed to activate some of the worst characteristics in people, such as neuroticism, paranoia and racial biases. To be clear, the work of Cambridge Analytica is not equivalent to traditional marketing. Cambridge Analytica specialized in disinformation, spreading rumors, kompromat and propaganda.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top