An explosive look at Cambridge Analytica, the weaponization of our everyday online activities, and the grave threat to democracy posed by an industry that is still largely unaccountable for its crimes.

The internet was meant to facilitate communication and strengthen democracy worldwide. However, as propaganda scholar Dr. Emma L. Briant reveals, powerful actors harnessed the growth of social media, turning the dream of a free internet into a manipulative mass-surveillance nightmare. War on Terror–era legislation enabled a global influence industry to weaponize our digital world for the advancement of profit, power, and political influence.

In 2018, Cambridge Analytica and its unethical parent company SCL Group catapulted to international notoriety with far-reaching consequences.

Their purchase of millions of Facebook users’ data around the world triggered the second scandal of Facebook’s complicity in monetizing personal data. Yet the story of Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group remains poorly understood. With early access to interviews—many conducted before the scandal—and exclusively obtained documents, Dr. Briant offers a groundbreaking investigation of both companies and how extensive data harvesting, black ops methods, psychographic techniques, voter suppression and fear-driven messaging were deployed everywhere from the Caribbean to the Middle East, to Africa and Eastern Europe, and to the U.S. and United Kingdom.

Endorsements from twitter

Dwayne Winseck
Prof.at the School of Journalism and Communication Cross-appointment at the Institute of Political Economy, Carleton University

I am very much looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Dr Briant’s new book. Smart, grounded and incisive analysis of the persuasion industries w/o accepting those industries’ own aggrandizing claims about their powers.

Dr. Aram Sinnreich
Professor and Chair of Communication Studies division at American University’s School of Communication

I’ve read some draft chapters of @EmmaLBriant’s new book, and it’s brilliant and important — a unique insight into #cambridgeanalytica and the role of #datamining and #disinformation in the democratic process. Highly recommend you preorder your copy today!