Trump's Data Team: We use the same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler" [View all]

[CousinIT]

The London-based SCL Group is the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, which helped the Trump campaign craft targeted messages to voters. Cambridge Analytica claims it can predict how people will vote by combining personality surveys and thousands of pieces of data it has on every American adult. The firm told the Washington Post it offered recommendations on where to hold rallies and where volunteers should knock on doors, for example. The company also helped develop messaging for a group pushing to leave the European Union during the Brexit referendum last year. It is reportedly in talks with the administration to work on policy-related communications.

Cambridge Analytica has deep ties to the Trump administration. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, served on the company’s board. The company is largely owned by the Mercer family, one of Trump’s biggest donors. Rebekah Mercer, played a crucial role picking cabinet nominees, Politico reported.

It is not clear exactly what role Cambridge Analytica could play in the White House. Neither responded to multiple requests for comment. Like Cambridge Analytica, its parent company, SCL Group, touts its ability to identify psychological traits in large groups of people and uses that data to target messages to specific audiences.

Here’s how the company’s CEO, Nigel Oakes, described his work to a trade journal in 1992: “We use the same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler. … We appeal to people on an emotional level to get them to agree on a functional level.”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kendalltaggart/company-tied-to-trump-campaign-once-pushed-voter-suppression