Image: Cambridge Analytica's offices in central London. Credit: Yui Mok/PA Images, all rights reserved.
In just a month, Cambridge Analytica has gone from relative obscurity to international notoriety. But for me, this story isn’t new. I first interviewed senior figures in Cambridge Analytica’s lesser known parent company SCL for my 2014 book “Propaganda and Counter-terrorism - Strategies for Global Change”, and I’ve followed their work closely ever since.
It’s been frustrating to watch some of the key players manage to escape crucial questions that should be asked of them. Because this isn’t just a scandal about an obscure, unethical company. It’s a story about how a network of companies was developed which enabled wide deployment of propaganda tools - based on propaganda techniques that were researched and designed for use as weapons in warzones - on citizens in democratic elections. It’s a logical product of a poorly regulated, opaque and lucrative influence industry. There was little or nothing in place to stop them.
