WASHINGTON — The man who blew the whistle on a private firm’s collection and retention of millions of people’s personal data through Facebook warned lawmakers about the use of data to influence the public at a hearing Wednesday.
Christopher Wylie, a former contractor with the firm Cambridge Analytica, revealed earlier this year that the company had collected troves of data on social media users and used it in elections.
Facebook says 87 million users’ data was collected through the program.
Speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, Wylie said Cambridge Analytica is “the canary in the coal mine,” and urged lawmakers to consider enacting protections for internet users.
“Cambridge Analytica sought to identify mental vulnerabilities of voters and exploit them by targeting information designed to activate some of the worst characteristics in people, such as neuroticism, paranoia and racial biases,” Wylie said.
Ahead of the publication of a story about Cambridge Analytica’s practices, Facebook threatened the Guardian with a lawsuit and banned Wylie from the platform, which, he said, “reveals the unrestrained power” tech companies can have.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked Wylie about work the firm did when it was under the leadership of Steve Bannon, the former chief executive of the far-right website Breitbart who was a key adviser to President Donald Trump during the campaign and his first months in office.
Leahy asked Wylie about reports that in 2014 Cambridge Analytica tested messages Bannon had started that later became common refrains during Trump’s campaign.
“The company learned that there were segments of the population that responded to messages like ‘drain the swamp’ or images of walls or indeed paranoia about the deep state that weren’t necessarily always reflected in mainstream polling or mainstream political discourse,” Wylie said.
Leahy asked Wylie to explain how the work Cambridge Analytica undertook is different from other forms of marketing.
“Traditional marketing does not exacerbate people’s innate prejudices, and coerce them and make them believe things that aren’t necessarily true,” Leahy said.
Under questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Wylie detailed connections between Cambridge Analytica and the Russian oil company Lukoil, including sending documentation about the firm’s experience with rumor campaigns and spreading misinformation.
Managers with the firm traveled frequently to Russia and worked on projects there. Russian President Vladimir Putin was the only foreign leader the firm was involved in testing about while Wylie was with the company, he said.
Wylie said he could not say “definitively” if the data collected by Cambridge Analytica ended up in Russia, or if the work had any relation to Russian entities like the Internet Research Agency — the Russian government-linked “troll farm” indicted by the special prosecutor investigating influence in the 2016 election.
But he said that he finds Cambridge Analytica’s links to Russia of “substantial concern.”
“A lot of noise was being made to companies and individuals who were connected to the Russian government,” Wylie said.
GOP senators were more skeptical of the claims against Cambridge Analytica. Several likened the firm’s activities to other forms of marketing and advertising.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., asked other panelists to talk about how other candidates have used social media data.
He particularly cited President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, pointing to remarks from people involved in his campaign about strategy support from individuals tied to Facebook.
“Does anyone on the panel thing that there is a chance in a million years that the Hillary Clinton campaign didn’t have a substantial investment in data analytics?” Cruz said.
Wylie stumbled under questioning from Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., about Cambridge Analytica’s other activities at the time Wylie was a contractor there.
Kennedy pressed for more information about the firm’s sources for data other than Facebook, and asked about the firm’s other political clients in the United States.
Wylie mentioned a few, including Robert Mercer, a major backer of Trump. However he said he would need to provide specifics at a later date.
The hearing stretched on for hours, with several Democratic lawmakers asking about efforts by the firm to use data to target individuals of certain racial backgrounds and discourage them from voting.
