Hollister or Chanel? Which brand fans were targeted for pro-Trump messaging during the US elections?
Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Christopher Wylie reveals data indicating attachments to particular brands was exploited to influence votes, including Brexit
Christopher Wylie, the whistle-blower who exposed the widespread misuse of data by his former employer, Cambridge Analytica, has revealed how the company “weaponised” the fashion industry in the run up to the 2016 United States election, which he claims helped Donald Trump get elected.
Speaking at the annual BoF (Business of Fashion) Voices festival in Oxfordshire, England, Wylie revealed for the first time a matrix based on data collected by the firm to show how users’ preferences for particular brands on social media platforms – Facebook, in particular – were used to help target these same users with pro-Trump messaging.
He compared the misuse of fashion-based data as one of the campaign’s lesser reported “weapons of mass destruction.”
“[Cambridge Analytica] looked at actual people. How they engaged with certain brands was put into a funnel and helped build the algorithms,” Wylie explained.
“When you look at personality traits, music and fashion are the most informative [tools] for predicting someone’s personality.”
A user’s predilection for a particular label gives, he said, a very clear indication of “populist political signalling.”
Cambridge Analytica, which was shut down earlier this year following an investigation by The Observer, was the political marketing firm headed by Trump’s former key adviser, Steve Bannon, and owned by hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer.
It also used user information obtained without authorisation in early 2014 – including cultural preferences such as fashion and music – to create a system that could single out voters to expose them to specific political advertising.
When you look at personality traits, music and fashion are the most informative [tools] for predicting someone’s personality