mr. Brian Lera show on WNYC good morning
everyone we are live in the green space
this morning thanks first of all to
Brigitte Bergen for filling in yesterday
while I was off for Yom Kippur that's
the day when Jews atone for our sins
judging from my Twitter I should have
taken weeks to atone for my sins but we
only get a day so I did what I could
kind of related
let me start for just a minute today
before we get to our first guest with a
little poll for you here in the green
space audience how many of you have
heard about the ellen degeneres george w
bush Dallas Cowboys controversy about
half maybe even a little less well
apparently when she was at the Dallas
Cowboys game over the weekend and posted
a video of her sitting in the owners box
and laughing it up with another guest
there former president george w bush
some progressive fans of ellen on
twitter didn't like it and ellen
responded on her various media people
were upset they thought why is a gay
hollywood liberal sitting next to a
conservative republican president didn't
even notice I'm holding the brand new
iPhone 11 but a lot of people were mad
and they did what people do when they're
mad they tweet and but here's one tweet
that I loved this person says Ellen and
George Bush together makes me have faith
in America again I'm friends with George
Bush in fact I'm friends with a lot of
people who don't share the same beliefs
that I have we're all different and I
think that we've forgotten that that's
okay that we're all different when I say
be kind to one another I don't mean only
the people that think the same way that
you do I mean be kind to everyone okay
green space no wait don't applaud yet
don't applaud yet because we're going to
take a poll first of all we'll ignore
Ellen's little product placement there
but how many of you and I'll assume that
this audience in lower Manhattan is
heavily politically liberal how many of
you could pal around with George W Bush
given all that he has done that you find
awful applaud if that if you could
applaud if you couldn't applaud if you
didn't applaud and you don't want to
admit that you really either could or
how many of you think less of Ellen for
doing so
just a few how many of you think you
couldn't have piled around with george w
bush before but now the trump has been
in office for three years you're
perfectly happy to pal around with
george w bush there we go i knew we
would find common ground listeners in
radioland when we're here live in the
green space you can watch the show as
well as listen as we can stream live
video from here so come see us at WNYC
org or the green space org or the WNYC
facebook page now whistleblowers are in
the news right the Trump Ukraine ones
obviously and also Christopher Wiley if
you don't know that name he is the
Cambridge analytic a whistleblower whose
revelations about that right-wing data
mining company and its relationship with
Facebook have changed the global
conversation about political dirty
tricks and privacy in the social media
age now Christopher Wiley has written a
book with the one-word title that I can
almost say on the radio it's the word
mind followed by the letter F then an
asterisk then the letters C and K the
subtitle which I can say on the radio is
Cambridge analytic ah and the plot to
break America Christopher Wiley thanks
for coming to the green space thanks for
having me
and I thought we might start by building
this around a few vocabulary terms for
our listeners so first what is
psychographic micro-targeting so psycho
gray so if you think about the word
demographic right these are often things
that you can see on a person right so a
person's age you know gender or gender
presentation you know they're perhaps
their income socioeconomic status the
term psychographic is a reference to a
way of grouping people rather than by
age gender or race etc by behaviors by
attitudes and by disposition so the so
it's like demographics but for inside of
your head micro-targeting is where you
take large data sets about specific
individual people and you build a model
and a statistical model and algorithm to
predict characteristics about people in
that data set so what was your role in
developing a system of analyzing voter
behavior based on psychographics rather
than demographics for cambridge
analytical yeah so you know one of the
things that I talked about in the book
which I think a lot of people sort of
missed when the story came out was that
when I first got recruited at the
company that later became Kimmage
analytic I was actually working at a
British military contractor based in
London who which specialized in what's
an area called information operations
and psychological operations and the
work that I originally started doing
when I was at his company called SEL
group was looking at essentially
characteristics of people using data
online to identify what are the
characteristics of people who would be
more vulnerable to radicalization online
who were who were more vulnerable to
being exploited by groups you know this
at the time this was around 2013 so Isis
was just emerging and there was a
problem particularly in Europe about you
know people in the West what the
military called the Youngs young
unmarried men being targeted by
extremist groups recruited and you know
going to Syria etc so when you look at
sort of modern modern security threats
you know like you've got the military in
the United States and it has this giant
budget can just run by generals for like
boys with toys so they love things that
are that explode in our large and
phallic but but but when you actually
look at modern security threats for
Western democracies right it is you know
it's all emerging online and so when I
when I started we were looking we were
looking at how to identify for you know
national security purposes people who
could become radical radical eyes mm-hmm
that that company SEL group you know
caught the attention of a guy who many
people have now heard of Steve Bannon
and you know he convinced an all-right
billionaire Robert Mercer to go and
acquire the company and the reason why
they wanted to acquire the company it
was because when you when you create
tools to identify and study and you know
understands people who are more prone to
radicalization these young unmarried men
who have particular kinds of
psychological characteristics more prone
to paranoid ideation for example you can
take that knowledge and you can invert
it and so what happened was when the
company got acquired and they rebranded
it as Cambridge analytic I moved a lot
of its operations to the United States
it was still looking to identify people
who would be more vulnerable to
exploitation and radicalization but
rather than to mitigate the problem it
was to amplify those characteristics in
those ATRA
and radicalize people for the alt-right
instead of scaring them away from being
radicalized by groups like Isis trying
to lure them into being radicalized by
all right groups in the United States
yeah and one of the things that you know
I try to communicate in in in the book
is that you know and I very specifically
use terms like extremist groups in the
United States radicalization you know
religious and ethnic conflict these are
words that often in the United States
people will use to talk about you know
Africa or other parts of the world when
it is literally happening here yeah and
that I think it's really important for
people to start realizing that like the
alt-right is a radicalized group and if
you if once you start to understand it
that way it makes a lot more sense
don't psychographics and demographics
massively overlap if you're let's say a
white Christian non-college educated
male 55 years old laid off from a
factory job that's a demographic maybe
even a stereotype the way I just
articulated but that tells us a lot
about what your political psychology and
values what you might call
psychographics are gonna be don't think
yes and no so you know people so just to
just to be clear like people's behavior
and attitudes are the product of an
interaction between their dispositions
so psychological attributes and culture
and environmental circumstances and
demographics so that it is an
interaction there's no one single thing
that determines your behavior but I
would say that you know if I if we
walked out onto the street right now and
pulled you know 100 you know young women
between you know 18 and 24 who have you
know an undergraduate degree who live in
New York etc etc you know are they the
same person right they're not mm-hmm you
know just because they're you're all
young women doesn't mean that they have
the same experiences that they think in
the same way this is you know an idea in
you know feminist theory called
intersectional ism and so
it's not to say that you know a person's
experience cause you're talking about
isn't influential in their worldview but
like when you're looking at things like
a person's how prone is somebody to you
know racialized thinking you can have
racists who are like wealthy and
suburban you can have racists that are
you know any of any kinds of you know
life circumstance if you see what I mean
right
so they intersect to some degree with
demographics and to some degree not yeah
they're independent constructs that
entry that interact with each other my
guest if you're just joining us is
Christopher Wiley sometimes known as the
Cambridge analytic a whistleblower he's
got a new book about his experiences and
also some warnings for the world and
some recommendations for government
regulation too that will get to where
you haven't even touched yet on
Facebook's role in all of this the book
is called mind f-word Cambridge analytic
and the plot to break America and
listeners on the radio we can take some
phone calls for him at two one two four
three three WNYC two one two four three
three nine six nine two and audience
here in the green space raise your hands
and we'll come around with microphones
next vocabulary term you worked with
Steve Bannon as you said who was vice
president at Cambridge analytic at the
time and you say he believed in
something called race realism what is
race realism yes so this is one of the
things that you know I actually learned
about wedding you know after the company
was acquired and became Cambridge
analytic I was that in the United States
there is this growing movement that
particularly online about people who are
who look at the world through a very
racial lens but you know in in sort of
modern America when I when I say modern
has an in the past third of 20 30 years
you know to be called or accused of
being a racist is like quite quite a
thing to be accused of and it results in
social shunning and all that
one would hope but but there are a group
of people who rather than trying to hide
those views start to embrace those views
in this in the way that if you look at
sort of the the economic disparities for
example between white Americans and
African Americans or you look at the
incarcerate incarceration rates of
African Americans versus white Americans
and I'm this is to explain a perspective
so I'm not I'm not defending this and
there's a lot of logical flaws in it but
if you if you look at that and you go so
you've got all of these you know African
Americans and they're being locked up
they can't get a job they're on welfare
and they've had all this time to get
their act together and then I take a
look at all of these African countries
taking our money and you know maybe
there is something to this idea of
differences fundamental differences in
the race in races and maybe that I am
NOT racist maybe I'm just being
realistic about race and I am NOT giving
into you know the PC warriors or the
social justice warriors etc who are
trying to limit my understanding in my
language so that this group that they
they can milk votes off of you know is
is protected in arts of civil discourse
so race realism is I guess a newish term
for really the most old-fashioned
retrograde kind of genetic white
supremacy yeah it is you know it's just
a rebranding and when you go and I you
know online and you reads you know
forums on each end or
you know you name it all of these sort
of bizarre corners of the internet you
know there are a lot of people who
genuinely think that like you know there
are certain characteristics with that
way that are correlated to to race and
the the idea and one of the things that
I found so horrifying about what
Cambridge analytic ended up becoming was
that it started to look for people who
would be open to this idea that you know
all of those like thoughts that you know
glimmers of thoughts that you have when
you watch a TV show or you see an
african-american or Latino or whatever
and you kind of shut that down you're
like no I shouldn't say that I shouldn't
think that like maybe there's something
to that
why don't we unpack that why don't we
tease that out giving the permission
yeah and it does and it does give
somebody like if you have these feelings
this idea that maybe you're the one
who's living in reality and everyone
else isn't gives you permission to like
embrace embrace these Inklings of
thought so how well did you know Steve
Bannon and how much does he believe in
quote race realism you know he he he's
an odd guy
I'm like where do I begin read the book
it talked all about it but he you know
one of the he kind of sees himself as
this like visionary he wants to remake
America and and and he talks a lot about
like a sort of very overly simplified
view of like hinduist scripture for
example with Dharma which is like the
purpose or balance in the universe and
you know he likes to dabble in lots of
thoughts from other you know other
religions or other cultures and and
collect bits and pieces in order to sort
of create his you know or back his own
sort of view of the world and one of the
things that he would often talk about is
that like America no longer is America
um and the only way that you can bring
back America to the time where it had
purpose you know is to effectively
isolate it first so that once it's
isolated from the world then you can
then work on remaking it from the inside
you know it's a it's a it's this he has
a very odd view of what America should
be which is sort of go back to the 1950s
where you could you know on one he has a
sort of vision of like suburbia in this
way that was just perfect but you know
it's like who is it perfect for right if
you know sure if you're like a white
straight dude that's great you're living
it up right but if you're kind of not
that guy life sucks so your crisis of
conscience and your eventual
whistleblowing came from seeing evidence
of some kind of race realism project
that Cambridge analytical was gonna do
or was doing yeah so you know I remember
you know seeing the product you know
when you when you're looking at when
you're looking at data or databases and
records of things it can be cool
it is quite sort of dissociating because
you're you know record ID number blah
blah blah blah blah like which had this
response and
like likes these things on Facebook etc
etc etc like it just it's a bunch of
data like it doesn't look like a person
right for me when I started seeing you
know video footage of like some of the
focus groups that they started doing
with those targets or bringing people to
events and and and footage from from
events where like you would literally
like I watched these things that I see
people who are just like so filled with
rage about stuff about these narratives
that they had been fed they did not know
that they were fed this this kind of
narrative but they were nonetheless fed
these narratives that were completely
made-up about what America is becoming
and who's trying to keep them down and
who's trying to attack their way of
being and just the rage that you see in
people's eyes for something that is
literally Steve Manning's fantasy and I
was just like well I can't say on air
but like WTF like what like but one of
the problems is like when if you're
working at a company and your new
management like has just taken over and
they decide to do like grossly unethical
or in some cases unlawful things you
can't just like go to HR and be like can
I just put on my record that like I
disagree with this like you you like you
can't like you can't even go to HR if
you've been sexually assaulted half the
time and expect to get a good response
the record I was not sexually assaulted
banning that would be really gross I
didn't ask that question
by the way you just said a word that you
can't say on the radio you can't even
say the title of your book on the radio
I'm sorry mind f-word why did you call
your book that though so why did I call
my book the thing that I can't say on
air the book whose title cannot be
spoken because when I so when I when I
was still working there and my friends
at the time started noticing that I was
kind of getting a bit cry and stressed
out and like was quite different you
know they would ask me like okay wait
what what is this like what are you what
is wrong what's happening explain it to
me and I'd be like I don't even know
where to begin it's just a giant mind
when I went like that did you practice
that there we go I I can do sound
effects by like so and and and when and
when I started working with the Guardian
in the very first conversation I had
with Carol Cadwallader who's a
journalist at the Guardian which is a
large newspaper in the UK you know when
she asked like like what is Cambridge
analytic I like tell me like I've been
talking to all these ex-employees and
done it and I just go it's a giant mind
and I say that both in terms of like you
know when you when you read the book you
kind of you thought because I talk a lot
about all the really weird characters
who were involved who are like real
people like they're like in the white
house and stuff but like how weird they
are and like crazy they are and so it's
super trippy like when you like read a
you know and you went out even when I
was writing it I was like this is really
trippy but also the very nature and
purpose of the company was to like blank
the minds of of Americans and so that's
sort of why I chose it
let's take a phone call and again if
you're just joining us my guest is
Christopher Wiley known as the Cambridge
analytic a whistle blower and he's
written a new book with that word we
just didn't say on the radio that's
about his experiences we're gonna go to
line two Stephanie in Brooklyn you're on
WNYC Stephanie thank you for calling in
Heather thanks for taking my call I am
calling I don't know this is really more
of a question or comment but I'm
chinese-american and my brother is
extremely conservative and he for years
I've always said like your raises and he
knows denied it and he's basically said
I'm a raised realist I'm not a racist we
go through everything that your guests
just identified as bannon's thinking and
my brother is a super intelligent very
well-read well-informed person so I have
a lot of difficulty just making sense of
where he how he has thousands these
views and refuses to acknowledge that
there was a racist component he believes
in like genetic inferiority in certain
races and all these like things that are
just atrocious to me so I was really
surprised to hear that your guests were
saying that Steve Bannon espouses its
race realism I had never heard of that I
don't really follow much about the event
and so I guess my question would be did
you've been in coin.this or did he
popularize it like where exactly did it
come from
so a couple points so one no Steve
Barron didn't invent race realism it's
an idea that's been around in various
forms for like a really long time you
know it used to be called like
scientific racism or you know it was the
preak you know is the underlying
ideology of eugenics in those sort of
20s and 30s by it's a vehicle it's a
tool to help people rationalize
underlying feelings about other races
there's a whole host of psychological
biases that are at play with it that are
not related to intelligence so you can
be a highly intelligent
and racist it's not people often talk
about racism and we have this like
concept of you know like the the like
uneducated you know trashy person who
you know doesn't know anything about the
world and it's just like you know
spouting rage at different different
colors of people but you you can have
somebody who is highly intelligent and
still either hates or look upon
different types of people with disdain
and you know it's not the thing about
racism - is that it's not and I actually
talk about it in the book it's not you
know we often think about it as like
overt hatred but oftentimes racism
appears in a much subtler form and one
of the things that that Steve Bannon
found interesting particularly by about
Democrats is that there's sort of a
distinction between like this idea of
liking groups of people and respecting
groups of people and one of the things
that he kind of intuitively felt and
then later the company started exploring
is like well is there a form of racism
amongst Democrats amongst very
progressive people where you know you go
like I love African Americans and you
know you know that they're they're great
but like we need to do everything for
them with the sort of underlying and not
necessarily like consciously thought
assumption that you know we need to
build houses for them because they can't
do it themselves we need to do all the
very paternal eyes very paternalistic
view of how to interact with different
kinds of people and you know that is a
vehicle in as well to exploit so it's
not it racism can can rear its heads
regardless of intelligence regardless of
political spectrum it's there in a lot
of people Stephanie can I just ask you
if you're still there
you said your brother uses that actual
term race realism do you have any
indication of where he might have gotten
it might have gotten it might he might
have he gotten it from Facebook or from
Fox News or any particular source no he
is college but in high school he was top
he was sort of like the opposite end
right and I think we're losing you so
much on the line for whatever reason
that I'm gonna go but but I think we get
the gist he doesn't know where that came
from but was this part of what you
described as project rip on am I saying
that right in the book one of the
Cambridge analodjica analytical projects
that Steve Bannon was associated with
that tried to foment these all right
attitudes yeah it was called I I called
it rip on but I got corrected a while
ago by a member of Congress that I
should pronounce it
rippen because it's our IPO a.m. because
the origin the reason why I was called
rip on or ripping is there's a town in
Wisconsin that where the Republican
Party was founded and so the the genesis
of the Republican Party was there and
this was to be the genesis of the new
Republican Party now let me say that you
see the deeper implication of project
grip on not as simply the election of
Donald Trump but the ability to have a
shared reality at all in the United
States yeah
so you know in in the book I don't just
talk about sort of Cambridge analytic I
I had in the book talking about more
broadly like what did King Regina lyrica
exploit that still exists now with how
we engage with the Internet and you know
when I look at you know a platform like
Facebook Facebook often talks about
itself it uses sort of nice sounding
words like it you know talks about
itself as a community well it's a gated
community because and the reason I say
that is because
when you look at the very nature of like
segmentation right the idea that you're
going to take some kinds of ads and
you're going to put it to the group a
and different kinds of ads to Group B
and this has been a you know a
long-standing tactic in you know
marketing like you know this is
toothpaste day for this person that for
that person etc but there's another word
for segmentation that I use and it's
segregation and the reason I say
segregation is because when you look at
you know how much we live our lives on
platforms that are designed to segment
us into different groups what that does
is if if we now live you know and get
our news and get our information and
talk to people using an environment that
is mediated by an algorithm that is
trying to put us into different groups
separate groups trying to constantly
separate us and what we see simply so
that we click on it more right what that
what that does is we we go into the same
the same platform or we could be walking
into the same theater or we could be
walking into the same building but we're
using different entrances and our
experience of that place that community
is completely different and when I when
I go to Congress one of the the
questions that I often get is like
what's the big deal about Facebook why
is everybody like in such a fuss about
it it's just like ads like who cares
like there's been ads forever right you
know you got a better deal or something
that's more interesting and one of the
things that I say is like well what's
the big deal about where you get to sit
on the bus what's the big deal about the
water fountain that you use what's the
big deal about where you get to sit in
the theater that one of the really
important thing about having a Kohi like
a coherent well-functioning society is
like shared experience and so if so much
of our news so much of our information
you know these algorithms decide like
which friends you should stay in touch
with or not right who who does it think
you'll be more engaged with and so it
will show you more of those persons
updates than somebody else you
literally like you have like a robot
deciding whether or not you should lose
touch with certain people so it moves us
away from being able to have shared
realities we we have a question here in
the green space hi I'm here to know I'm
curious to know what the sense and
feeling was from your colleagues at
Cambridge analytical about the work that
they were doing as well yeah so when we
first got acquired the team that was
there a lot of them were actually quite
liberally minded we had quite a few
people who were you know immigrants
people of color like you name it it
looks like a liberal spectrum of you
know how you'd imagine it a lot of
people left I was the first person to
leave but very shortly after a lot of
people left and they were able to then
sort of fill that void with people who
were more chilled out about what the
company was doing but there were people
who paid there were people who enjoyed
it because you kind of you feel powerful
if you can figure out ways to get people
to do stuff and you know when shortly
before I left is when you know we had a
lot of interest from various Russian
officials and Russian executives coming
you know this some of the psychologists
that worked on the projects went to st.
Petersburg in Russia and gave briefings
on like look at what you can do to
American voters like and like Facebook
lets us do it isn't this crazy you know
some of the people that they ended up
you know hiring like some are now
indicted by Muller people who worked
with you know X GRU agent sorry the
Russian intelligence agents you know and
the whole thing to me just it started
spiraling it like in a way that it was
just super trippy and
like half the time I was like is this
really happening like are we meeting
with people who like probably are like
spies and they're like wanting to access
our data in this country and this is
kind of really a bleep top
following up on on the audience members
question should I assume that the
employees of Cambridge analytic
were overwhelmingly white and as they
they became that way that's that was
really where I was going
they became that way cuz it wasn't
always like that no I mean we had you
know like one of my colleagues who I sat
beside she was you know a person of
color grew up you know in public housing
very liberally minded person but you
know a lot of these people joined before
Steven and took over so and and like I
left and like there was a mass exodus of
people who left probably about three
months after I did because there was a
project in Nigeria that really I think
tipped the scales which I talked about
also in the book you know where the
company used the services of hackers
some of whom were like ex-russian
ex-israeli X etc intelligence agents who
were able to acquire the private email
records of the now presidents of Nigeria
and then also created videos that you
know I passed on to investigators there
was some of the most disturbing things
I've ever seen they took actual footage
of people being tied up and having their
throats cut and it wasn't it wasn't like
acted out like there was actual it was
like real footage of it there was one
woman who was put in a cage and she was
burned alive and in the pursuit of what
releasing these videos well in Nigeria
you know you have a Christian population
and you have a Muslim population and so
if you are
trying to divide a country you present
the Muslim population in a very
particular light and also you you know
one of the things that the company did
was target areas of Nigeria with these
ads to depress turnout I mean is voter
suppression and because not you know
Nigeria you know and they're doing it
for you know wealthy backers who wanted
mineral rights and oil rights and stuff
in the country and made a deal and to
it's you know and so they wanted to
depress certain kinds of votes in
certain regions and they did that
through intimidation we're almost at a
time but still thinking about our first
caller who identified herself as
chinese-american and her brother
conservative in subscribing to race
realism
did you see evidence that they were
trying to target asian-americans in
particular ways yeah yeah because you
know one of the one of the one of the
things that they sort of identified was
you can if you frame America as like
this this sort of zero-sum game where
it's like if other people become
successful that means that you are less
successful you were able to like pitch
people against each other and and also
there's like quite a bit of latent
racism within a lot of Asian American
communities particularly towards African
Americans that was exploited you know
and you know even things like narratives
of like you're the hard-working
immigrant and they're just on like
welfare that explicit yeah you had to go
through all the rules you had to jump
through all the hoops you're the one
who's the honorable person here you're
more American than this person because
they're on welfare and they're taking
your taxes you know you had to work to
get here and that when you listen to
that in particularly if you you know
imagine you are in an Asian American
immigrant where you've really struggled
yourself and you like worked you know as
hard as you can to like get a shop or
get a store but start a business or
whatever support your family and like
there's something about hearing that
just that just gets you like you just it
you know and so we can fall inside to
exploit that as much as possible we're
already over our time but I do want you
at least to be able to give a very brief
description of the policy
recommendations you make in the book you
describe something as a building code
for the internet is this mostly
aimed at the role of Facebook and other
social media in in these recruiting
efforts for the all right yeah so one of
the so we've like literally relegated
public discourse to a private company
you know you look at Facebook it was a
it was a company started as a hot or not
website because I guess Mark Zuckerberg
couldn't get laid and we and now you
know our democracies around the world
are being threatened because of that and
one of the things that I I talk about at
the end of the book is like all of the
ways that Silicon Valley frames these
debates that are like very subtle but
actually change people's perceptions of
things in a way that I find really
unhelpful so you know all this idea that
is that well it's a free service like
you know if you don't like it you don't
have to use it you know it's to me it's
first of all when you look at the the
top job titles at big tech companies
right is engineer and architect right
these are architectures they're not
services they're architectures and
they're architectures where you don't
really have a substantive choice you
can't choose if you want to have a if
you want to have a job you can't be like
I don't want to be tracked by Google
like you will have to use Google you
will have to use LinkedIn if you want to
have a functioning social life you will
have to use these platforms just in the
same way that you have to use
electricity you can say and we don't say
if you don't want to be electrocuted
don't use electricity right and and and
secondly when we think about
architectures right
you know in we wouldn't allow an
architect to build a building without
fire exits for example and you know at
the door have 20,000 words of terms and
conditions in a little book right and
the door says when you push this door
you accept these terms and conditions
and if you don't like that you're
trapped in a burning building without
fire exits we wouldn't allow the
architect to go well
the terms and conditions I was being
upfront it's transparent if you didn't
read it that's your choice it was free
to enter the building you know we would
say why are we allowing architects to
build burning buildings without fire
access and so this is why I say think
about this is an architecture and think
about how we how we regulate
architectures and I think that's that
more helpful waits you to think about it
I'm sorry to say that's gonna have to be
the last word from Cambridge analytical
whistleblower Christopher Wylie his new
book is mind f-word Cambridge analytical
and the plot to break America thank you
so much for coming to the game
[Applause]