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How Robert Mercer Used Military Psychological Techniques to Influence the BREXIT Vote

posted by Fnord666 on Monday May 15 2017, @05:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the psyops dept.

Whoever writes:

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."

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Monday May 15 2017, @06:11AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday May 15 2017, @06:11AM (#509801) Journal

    I think this says it all:

    ‘Dude fires people’: How the chaotic Trump news cycle confuses and misinforms the public [washingtonpost.com]

    “Most Americans absorb Washington news with an approach of ‘Wake me up when you people stop fighting,’ ” said Ari Fleischer, a White House press secretary under George W. Bush.

    “There is a big difference,” he told me, “between Washington insiders who are hanging on every development and Americans who don’t have TVs on their assembly lines or in their cubicles.”

    While not intensely focused on the news, he said, people are well aware of the overall chaos.

    And, oh, it was chaotic. First, Tuesday’s out-of-the-blue firing, followed by the initial rationale offered by White House spokespeople and Vice President Pence, which was followed by the president’s own conflicting explanation.

    No sooner was that absorbed than a new story line opened up — did Trump inappropriately ask for loyalty from Comey? Were there White House recordings of conversations that proved he didn’t?

    Politicians and journalists hyperventilated, but in Robeson County, N.C. — which voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and flipped last year to Trump — most people shrugged it off, according to the roving photojournalist Chris Arnade.

    Comey’s name came up “but it was so, so removed from facts,” Arnade said. Most saw this latest chapter as Trump being Trump: “Dude fires people.”

    Shady billionaire-owned companies did help Trump win. Whether they did so wittingly or wanted him to win is a case-by-case consideration [theintercept.com], but if the President delivers on some of his promises, they might warm up to him:

    Les Moonves, the chief executive and chairman of CBS Corporation, told investors recently that he is “looking forward to not having as much regulation and having the ability to do more.”

    Moonves specifically celebrated the appointment of Trump’s new FCC chairman, former Verizon attorney Ajit Pai, calling him “very beneficial to our business.”

    The media industry arguably helped Trump enormously in the early presidential campaign with extensive coverage that drowned out his competitors and left little room for discussion of the substantive policy issues facing voters. Now it has a lot to gain if the FCC begins a new wave of ownership deregulation and relaxes certain limits that currently prevent media conglomerates from controlling a large swath of local television stations, and prevent firms from owning television stations and newspapers in the same media market.

    [...] The Tyndall Report, a trade outlet that tracks the broadcast networks’ weekday nightly newscasts, estimated that in 2015 Trump received more coverage than the entire Democratic contest combined, and far more than his Republican opponents. Bernie Sanders, for instance, only received 20 minutes of coverage compared to 326 minutes for Trump.

    The New York Times estimated that through March 2016, Trump received $2 billion worth of free media coverage.

    Moonves in particular has cheered the Trump phenomenon, telling investors last year that Trump campaign “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

    Moonves explained that a negative presidential campaign is good for business because candidates were focused on political attacks, including buying television advertisements, instead of “talking about issues.” Trump also attracted record ratings, making him “good for us economically,” Moonves said.

    The Clinton outspending of Trump is very interesting in that context. Ultimately futile, amounting to almost nothing of value for Democrats, but still pocketed by media outlets nonetheless. Advertisements are basically psyops, and the massively increased ratings for CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc. allowed them to charge more for the Doritos and fluoride toothpaste-selling psyops.

    Fear of Trump has likely benefited media outlets [cnbc.com] as well, during what was a tough transition period from print to digital with many lamenting the death of traditional journalism. Perhaps the election of President Trump has saved journalism?

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    Starting Score:    1  point
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       Interesting=3, Total=3
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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 15 2017, @06:20AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Monday May 15 2017, @06:20AM (#509808) Journal

    Trump saves journalism in the same manner as a bankruptcy saves the priorities of a corporation ;)
    Do right or vanish.