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Earlier this year, The Observer and The Guardian broke the story that became the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This is the result of a one-year investigation in which Carole Cadwalladr worked with Christopher Wylie, a former whistle-blower employee, to reveal how the data analytics firm was behind the campaign. of Trump in 2016 and who had played a role in Brexit had used the data collected from 87 million Facebook users without their consent.
Cadwalladr's report led to the fall of Cambridge Analytica and a public apology from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, forced to testify before the congress. Facebook has since lost $ 120 billion of its course. She won the British Journalism Awards for Technology Journalism in December 2017 and the Orwell Prize for Political Journalism in June of this year for her work "On the Impact of Big Data on the European Referendum and the US Presidential Election." of 2016 ".
One of your first articles on Cambridge Analytica was published in 2017, but you were reviewing the company for some time before. Can you tell us what made you start to look at it?
I first heard the words "Cambridge Analytica" just a few weeks after the US presidential election. I had just started researching fake news and came across a series of strange and disturbing Google search results. I had typed "Google are Jews" in Google and he had suggested the search "are the Jews diabolical?" And when I clicked on it, I had a whole page of results saying they were … it was a really amazing moment. I then discovered an American scholar named Jonathan Albright who had just started mapping the fake news network. We had this late-night conversation during which we both scared each other of what we found and he said that 'companies like Cambridge Analytica can use these fake sites to track readers on the Web. I had never heard of the company before but I wrote it in this first article … and this triggered a letter of anger from them that triggered the chain events that led to our situation current.
One of the first works you wrote analyzed the link between Brexit and the US elections and the threat to democracy, which has become a central theme for your reporting on this issue. Take us through what happened in the months following the publication of this piece
The first big article I did on Cambridge Analytica was in February 2017, and it made these connections between their work on the Brexit campaign and in the United States. and the dark role of [Donald Trump’s former strategist] Steve Bannon and [conservative billionaire] Robert Mercer. It was just an online bomb … it was the first major play on the role of Robert Mercer. Jane Mayer, the New York writer-writer, was looking for a profile of him for the magazine, but the book was not published until a month ago, and people did not know what to think of l & # 39; section. . There were many people who said "it's really scary" and many others say "it reads like a conspiracy theory". This immediately had consequences in that it triggered three investigations: one from the Electoral Commission and two from the Office of the Information Commissioner, about the expenditures and what had been done with data, and then incorporated into a broader survey on the use of data in politics. It has become the largest data survey in the world and we now know that the team is also cooperating with the Mueller Inquiry. [into alleged Russian interference in the last US presidential election]. His final report will be published this fall and I really hope that he will be able to answer many questions about Cambridge Analytica and, more broadly, about what happened in the referendum.
The revelations then reached another level when you reported, based on the evidence of whistleblower Christopher Wylie, that Cambridge Analytica had used an academic from the University of Cambridge to collect data from millions of Facebook users
Following the release of this report in February, I became interested in another company, a Canadian company with links to Cambridge Analytica, which sold under the name of AggregateIQ. We already knew that Cambridge Analytica had worked for Brexit activists. But here's evidence that another company with close ties to Cambridge Analytica had been working with the official leave campaign, Vote Leave. It's illegal to coordinate campaigns and yet it was this strange and secret link … that SCL [Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica] and AggregateIQ quickly refused. I knew there was something there and I started tracking down the old employees. Nobody was talking to me at first, but eventually someone cracked up and when he heard about Facebook and Canada data, he said, "You have to find Chris Wylie." So I did it. It just took me a year longer to help him get into a position where he was ready to make a record …
Given the seriousness of the revelation in your reporting, and links with those in power, how did you deal with the requirements of this survey and public denials and pressure? How did the work on this story happen?
It was … exhausting, exhilarating, stressful, alarming and at times, slightly terrifying. The first months of last year were among the worst. I had the impression that the world had become very dark and that I was sitting on a lot of information that involved a lot of important and powerful people … and I worried myself about it . It's easier every time I publish – sunlight is the best disinfectant, etc. But it really took a lot of time every hour of waking up my life. And it was difficult to explain to my family and friends what I was involved in … whenever I tried to explain it, it seemed more absurd.
What support and encouragement did you receive to continue this story?
I must say that the support of the readers was absolutely crucial and was one of the elements that allowed me to continue. Not only because it gave me the confidence to continue, but also because it helped to give the organization confidence. It takes a lot of resources and determination for a news organization to continue to publish despite the kind of threats we were facing and the support of the readers for this report and what we were trying to do really helped my editors chief. trust, I think. And I am very grateful to you.
Can you tell us about the reaction you personally received in the last two years when you worked on this story, including from Guardian readers?
I had a lot of messages and I am ashamed of not having answered many of them. When the story unfolded, it was so incredibly busy, I was just overwhelmed by my inbox. And I still have not caught up with it. I think people do not realize how small the observer team is. I just had to have a tunnel vision to get the stories out. But it's really great and incredibly important to have the support, especially when it became very mean or personal, so I'm very, very grateful. Our readers are the best.
What remains to you throughout this investigation to prevent you from digging up various elements of history?
How helpless and vulnerable we are, how powerless we are, and how a very rich class of people are taking advantage of new technologies to win and gain power.
In your opinion, what was the most important element of reporting and revelation?
The aspect of history that has had the most impact has been the fallout for Facebook, from the collapse of its share price to the permanent control of lawmakers and regulators. One of the most important revelations is the multiple criminal acts that we now know have occurred during the referendum … and it's also one of the most frustrating. Many of the allegations have now been proven and simply ignored. We seem to have accepted as a country not to break the law. I have trouble doing it right now, just as I am reluctant to investigate the evidence that we have produced of the Russian interference. Even after Damian Collins, the Conservative MP who chairs the false parliamentary inquiry, clearly called on the government to say what he was doing, there was a deafening silence.
What do you think could protect us from something like this happening in the future?
Our electoral laws must be completely revised. And if Facebook continues to refuse to answer Parliament's questions and respond to legislators, I do not think it should be allowed to play a role in the UK elections.
This is a big question, but what do you think of the future from the point of view of data, privacy and the will of the people? elections?
I think it's inevitable that foreign actors and wealthy individuals are trying to manipulate social media platforms. Their methods will only become more sophisticated. And while Facebook and Google remain private businesses, in camera, out of the reach of lawmakers, we will not know how.
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