Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower: Firm Tried to Suppress Black Votes in 2016 US Elections

In an interview with the CNN News, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie has affirmed that the data mining firm was involved in undermining Black votes in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign as part of efforts by the former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.

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Few months ago Wylie made headlines for revealing nearly 87 million people may have been victims of data harvested by Cambridge Analytica without their consent as a result of a third-party application spoke of voter suppression during a Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday. 

Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) asked Wylie if Bannon's goal "was to suppress voting or discourage certain individuals in the U.S. from voting," to which Wylie responded, "That was my understanding, yes."

Further adding, to "discourage or demobilize certain types of people from voting," including African-Americans, which according to Wylie, were particular targets of the operations.

Cambridge Analytica, the data mining firm, which is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI, gained prominence when its dubious practice of harvesting and mining information on people to aid political campaigns globally came to light.  

"Mr. Bannon sees cultural warfare as the means to create enduring change in American politics. It was for this reason Mr. Bannon engaged SCL [Cambridge Analytica's parent company], a foreign military contractor, to build an arsenal of informational weapons he could deploy on the American population," Wylie said, the CNN reported.   

"Although Cambridge Analytica may have supported particular candidates in US elections, I am not here to point fingers. The firm's political leanings are far less relevant than the broader vulnerabilities this scandal has exposed," Wylie's written testimony read.  

Earlier this month, Cambridge Analytica announced that it was shutting down but media reports claim its actually merging with a previously existing Emerdata.