Thread by @LuluLemew, A new film reveals how Cambridge Analytica, collaborating with a software company, [...]

A new film reveals how Cambridge Analytica, collaborating with a software company, has created a platform for US churches that targets the poor, the addicted and the disabled —

to radicalize them for far-right politics. https://amp.dw.com/en/us-religious-data-platform-targets-mentally-ill-vulnerable-people/a-55062013?__twitter_impression=true @cpicciolini @propornot

A new film reveals how Cambridge Analytica, collaborating with a software company, has created a platform for US churches that targets the poor, the addicted and the disabled — to radicalize them for far-right politics. https://amp.dw.com/en/us-religious-data-platform-targets-mentally-ill-vulnerable-people/a-55062013?__twitter_impression=true @cpicciolini @propornot

“What initially happened is that a Koch brothers-funded charity commissioned Cambridge Analytica, along with a software company called Glue, to build a software platform that could be used by churches in order to target vulnerable people.”

“And we went to as many churches as we could. We spoke to as many people as we could. Charles looped in a senior academic from Melbourne and a professor of journalism at Columbia, and a whistleblower who used to work for SCL, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica.”

It turned out to be far-right-wing churches, conservative churches in the US. And they've built a platform that targets mentally ill or vulnerable people in order to draw them into church, to monetize them through donations. That's the short-term goal.

”To help them is the facade for it, but ultimately the aim is to convert them to the politics of the far right.”

“...these are people who are suffering from addiction, financial distress, who might be struggling with opioid dependence or they might be dealing with bipolar issues. And all of these options are available in the software that has been deployed to the churches.”

“And once those people are identified, they can target them with social media. And once brought into the church, they can also be recruited into the politics of the far right.”

Remember talking about something like this few yrs ago, @LincolnsBible?

It was initially rolled out as a marriage program ... at 16 major campuses, and some of those are megachurches. Some as small as village churches, now that it's available to pretty much everybody, and across all faiths: Catholic, Protestant, but mainly evangelical and dominions.

“They obviously wield enormous money and power. But the strength of the platform ...is this cheap tool. You can roll it out in a village church, and almost use it as a precognitive science of figuring out who's heading for divorce.. for eviction, who's in trouble.”

JFC

“when you're talking about local churches, I don't think they're aware.. What they do know is here's this magical platform called Insights. they could say, "...I want to find an area of town where people are suffering from high levels of addiction and divorce."

“Or you can look at it as saying you have churches that are looking for opportunities to build mega-businesses and to go in and to monetize off the backs of folks who are suffering, because they have an unfair recruiting tool for bringing those people into recovery programs“

“We interviewed one of the main founders and he essentially laid out how it all works. He had an initial presentation for donors...And that lays out pretty clearly that the aim is political because overwhelmingly, people who don't go to church don't vote Republican.”

“So it was a key thing to apply in certain swing states, because, of course, with enough swing states in the US, you can swing the vote.”

Is this a fairly recent phenomenon or was this something that was also deployed ahead of the midterms in 2018?

Kriel: We are confident that it was employed ahead of 2016, actually.

“By 2016, data and advertising were robust operations within Facebook and were being taken advantage of by [former Trump media adviser] Brad Parscale, by Cambridge Analytica, who were directly hired by the Trump campaign.”

“And you obviously have other big data platforms as well, like i360, also funded by the Koch brothers. And so these enormous data sets overlap. They overlap with the data that the Republicans have to gather as intel on their voters.”

“We found that the guy who commissioned Cambridge Analytica and also put money into Gloo, the software company, is a member of an organization called the Council for National Policy. And this is a 501(c)(3)”

Hi Becky.

They've existed for about 40 years. Their aim was to rewrite the Constitution by 2020. Now they're a little late, but if Trump wins another 4 years, they have a very real chance, bc they have systematically..worked to install a Republican legislature in many states.

“...if two-thirds of the US state legislatures call for a constitutional convention, then one is held and there hasn't been one since the Bill of Rights.”

The convention can revolve around a single issue, but once the convention is in operation, other issues can be introduced and you can effectively rewrite the entire document.

So the CNP was founded in 1981, riding off the back of the Reagan wave. Its roots are in the Southern Baptist Convention, so racism is part of its DNA. And they came together with a sense of urgency, knowing that by the 2030s, white Protestant males would no longer be a majority.

“They're an official body, but they're secretive, so nobody knows who the members are. Nobody knows when they hold their quarterly meetings or where they're going to be holding their quarterly meetings...we went undercover to one of their meetings for the very first time”

People You May Know is released on September 28.

https://twitter.com/lululemew/status/1000031864340525057