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The Guardian has an interesting article describing how Robert Mercer, Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage used techniques developed within the military to influence Britain's vote to exit the EU. Although it appears that the companies involved (AggregateIQ and Cambridge Analytics) are private companies, they have deep roots within the military.
The article describes Britain as a "managed democracy", with major decisions controlled by a US Billionaire.
[ n1: The article is an interesting read, including a reference to how in 2013, Google Founder Eric Schmidt's daughter Sophie suggested Cambridge Analytics get in touch with Palantir, Peter Thiel's data mining contractor for the GCHQ and many US military and intelligence agencies. Sophie currently works at Uber. According to a former employee, in 2013 Cambridge Analytics was just a "psychological warfare firm [...] before we became this dark, dystopian data company". ]
It was with AggregateIQ that Vote Leave (the official Leave campaign) chose to spend £3.9m, more than half its official £7m campaign budget. As did three other affiliated Leave campaigns: BeLeave, Veterans for Britain and the Democratic Unionist party, spending a further £757,750. “Coordination” between campaigns is prohibited under UK electoral law, unless campaign expenditure is declared, jointly. It wasn’t.
[...] The Electoral Commission has written to AggregateIQ. A source close to the investigation said that AggregateIQ responded by saying it had signed a non-disclosure agreement. And since it was outside British jurisdiction, that was the end of it. Vote Leave refers to this as the Electoral Commission giving it “a clean bill of health”.
[...] I asked David Banks, Veterans for Britain’s head of communications, why they spent the money with AggregateIQ. “I didn’t find AggegrateIQ. They found us. They rang us up and pitched us. There’s no conspiracy here. [...] Their targeting was based on a set of technologies that hadn’t reached the UK yet. A lot of it was proprietary, they’d found a way of targeting people based on behavioural insights."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @09:22AM (3 children)
Is it really these slandered men who are subverting democracy, or the whispering whiners who hold the lower classes in disdain for voting the wrong way?
Oh grow up with that "whispering whiners" bullshit.
There was an enormous amount of bald-faced lying from the brexit camp [brexitlies.com] - not just standard political wishy-washy vagueness to let people fill in the blanks with their hopes, but out-right lies of substance. By the time the liars are held accountable for their lies the damage will be done and they will be off living in Mallorca.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @12:15PM (1 child)
Sources for lying?
That page you link to only contains predictions about the future, and predictions can only be lying when you are the one in control of that future (and the brexit camp neither was nor is in control of the EU buerocracy).
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @12:20PM
> That page you link to only contains predictions about the future,
Literally the very first entry on the list is the lie about NHS funding.
The rest of your analysis is equally shoddy.
(Score: 4, Informative) by rleigh on Monday May 15 2017, @07:07PM
The "camps", either remain or leave were an irrelevance. The only thing that ultimately mattered was the box you crossed on the ballot paper, and the result of the referendum. All the promises and threats were so much noise. It was a giant fuss around the answering of a straightforward question (albeit with far-reaching consequences).
I found both campaign groups quite awful, and certainly didn't base my choice on any of the rubbish they were spouting. I researched the history and organisational structure of the EU in detail, properly informing myself about the subject matter, and ultimately voted to leave. I looked hard at reasons to stick with the status quo, but overall didn't find the cost/benefit worth it over the long term. I'm definitely not alone in voting based upon what is likely going to happen in the short to medium term, and felt we would be better off out sooner rather than later.