Mindf*ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World
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‘Please please please read Mindf*ck’ – Richard Dawkins
What if you could peer into the minds of an entire population? What if you could target the weakest with rumours that only they saw?
In 2016, an obscure British military contractor turned the world upside down. Funded by a billionaire on a crusade to start his own far-right insurgency, Cambridge Analytica combined psychological research with private Facebook data to make an invisible weapon with the power to change what voters perceived as real.
The firm was created to launch the then unknown Steve Bannon’s ideological assault on America. But as it honed its dark arts in elections from Trinidad to Nigeria, 24-year-old research director Christopher Wylie began to see what he and his colleagues were unleashing.
He had heard the disturbing visions of the investors. He saw what CEO Alexander Nix did behind closed doors. When Britain shocked the world by voting to leave the EU, Wylie realised it was time to expose his old associates. The political crime of the century had just taken place – the weapon had been tested – and nobody knew.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Main edition (2 July 2020), Profile Books |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 288 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1788165004 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1788165006 |
| Dimensions | 12.8 x 2 x 19.4 cm |
by Angel
This book is almost unique, the only other in its field being Shoshana Zuboff’s thick time “The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism” However Mindf*ck is probably more important and writes about those who use technology to abuse political power.
The abusers of the power of online social media from Steve Bannon to Boris Johnson and Michael Gove whose dishonesty in the Brexit referendum has resulted in the UK’s political system becoming divided by hate. Cambridge Analytica and AIQ are companies that distort people’s perceptions and manipulate their emotions for the purposes of the extreme right wing and massive neoliberal capitalist companies that have become over-powerful and unaccountable for their crimes.
Christopher Wylie’s outstanding book describes how all this happened from the point of view of an insider in the whole system and how people profited from manipulating democracies. This book is, as such essential reading for everyone from journalists to politicians to students of online media to ordinary people worried about the way politics has got out of control and the extreme right been allowed to take power.
The crimes against humanity by people and organisations featured here are detailed meticulously by Wylie and make desperate reading for anyone concerned with democracy, freedom, free speech and freedom in our everyday lives. His testimony shows that nowhere in the world is safe for democracy now that vast tech organisations like Facebook have so much power to enable fascism, hatred, oppression and actual harm. This book is one of the first shots in the coming war against the way corporate financial power manifest in manipulation of our thoughts through targeted advertising and curating of our lives, erodes our hard-won freedoms.
This book is essential reading, possibly the most important book published this century. I can not recommend this too highly. Read it, you will be terrified but glad you did. Everyone needs to know about this.
A courageous piece of work by a brave and intelligent man.
by Kevin
A page turning thriller documenting the plot playing out in the lives of almost everybody across the planet, right now, all day every day, as you read this! Send a copy to your MP! Everyone needs to read this most importantly those who might still be in a position to do something about it.
by Jill A
If u didnt know or thought it was “lefty” propaganda that leave won the referendum through targeted racism lies and targeted data harvesting playing on your anger u need read this book. Your personal information was used to mislead u with outright lies that has caused big division in this country for NOTHING. We need immigration. Immigration grows our economy. If theres one thing this book should shout at you, you should be vastly more afraid of this tory dictatorship and their illegal campaigns and illegal spending, not to mention the trillions that have been siphoned off as contracts to their cronies, than being afraid of hard working immigrants. This is the man who helped do this. From the horses mouth. Many of you will have worn poppies this month yet need remember exactly what we were fighting in ww2. The most vile xenophobia that was repeated in leaves campaign. Shame on all of the 17.4 million who did not care enough to see through this.
by Sidney Harbour-Bridge
What an eye-opener.
Cannot recommend this book highly enough. Apart from being incredibly interesting with regards to all the information about voting and psychology, it exposes in great detail the abhorrent practices of companies like Cambridge Analytica, and the way they have manipulated people all over the world through Facebook.
I’d heard about the CA scandal in the news but had no idea of the depths they’d plumbed previously in developing countries while perfecting their dark art of disinformation. I found myself shaking my head in disbelief at a lot of the actions.
Facebook hardly cover themselves in glory either. The alarming permissions given to FB apps designed to harvest data on people (they also gather all friends data too without their knowledge) and then their attitude towards being investigated and the bullying tactics of the author later on are all very worrying.
I salute Christopher Wylie for a superb book and for shining a spotlight on these heinous companies like Cambridge Analytica and the people that run them and pay for their services.
by Mr. S. Townsley
It’s an odd book. At one level its a story of how a liberal gay man ends up working for the art-right political movement that has shaped the last decade. At another level its a story of personal sacrifice in exposing wrongdoing.
However, the most important message is that democracy itself maybe be on its way out. A new generation of political leaders using technology to create a culture in which billionaires can use their wealth more effectively to gain control of people’s lives than has been possible for decades. It’s the story of how the Internet, once imagined as something that would create a space for free speech, is now being used for a new style of authoritarian leadership.
In the democratic era the ownership of media has led to people voting for things that are against their own interests. The new media is making that more effective.
This book explores all these themes in a chronological journey.
At the end there is a manifesto of steps that should be taken in the digital age.
by Alexander L. Brown
This a very well written account that shows all that’s wrong with the power of Facebook and the havoc it’s algorithms wreak. There’s no doubt there’s more that divides us than unites us in this new world in which we live, and credit to Whilie for blowing the whistle on a baby he birthed.