The CEO Of Cambridge Analytica’s Parent Company Compared Trump To Hitler Like It’s A Good Thing
A high-level Brexit campaigner also described Nazi propaganda as "very clever".
The UK’s parliamentary inquiry into fake news published some pretty chilling transcripts today, featuring the CEO of Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL Group and one of the Brexit campaign’s communication directors apparently praising Hitler’s propaganda strategy.
The quotes come from interviews conducted by academic researcher Dr. Emma Briant, who interviewed both men while researching a book on propaganda and elections. Briant wrote on Twitter today that sharing the interviews “was not easy but it was my public responsibility as an academic and matter of personal conscience to submit to the inquiry.”
In the recordings, SCL CEO Nigel Oakes compares Trump’s campaign strategy to the Nazis’, pointing out that both campaigns found a way to “leverage an artificial enemy”.
“Of course Hitler attacked the Jews,” Oakes said. “He didn’t have a problem with the Jews at all, but the people didn’t like the Jews.”
“So he just leveraged an artificial enemy. Well, that’s exactly what Trump did. He leveraged a Muslim — I mean, you know, it’s, it was a real enemy. ISIS is real, but how big a threat is ISIS really to America?”
“Really, I mean, we are still talking about 9/11, well 9/11 is a long time ago.”
Oakes was not the only interviewee to point out Hitler’s propaganda tactics as an influence. Andy Wigmore, the former director of communications for Brexit campaign group Leave.EU, was even more explicit with his praise.
“The propaganda machine of the Nazis, for instance — you take away all the hideous horror and that kind of stuff — it was very clever, the way they managed to do what they did,” he said. “In its pure marketing sense, you can see the logic of what they were saying, why they were saying it, and how they presented things, and the imagery.”
That’s genocide he’s talking about, FYI — “in its pure marketing sense”.
Oakes and Wigmore have been pretty understandably slammed for their comments, including by Christopher Wylie, the guy who blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica’s unethical campaign techniques last month. Cambridge Analytica, in case you’ve forgotten, is the company that harvested millions of people’s Facebook data through a personality quiz app, without their consent, and then used that data to help Donald Trump’s election campaign.
LeaveEU’s director also caught on tape discussing how he thought the Nazis were quite ‘clever’ at messaging. He then wonders if LeaveEU “went too far” after Jo Cox’s murder. https://t.co/as5x5uoAAG pic.twitter.com/2LqSgTFa8w
— Christopher Wylie (@chrisinsilico) 16 April 2018
Yes. Bravo to @EmmaLBriant – academic specialist in propaganda who handed over her interviews with Cambridge Analytica & @LeaveEUOfficial to @DamianCollins‘ parliamentary committee. This hasn’t been easy at all for her. Will others now come forward?? https://t.co/zqMjjNITlR
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) 16 April 2018
Of course, Cambridge Analytica specifically isn’t involved with either of the individuals who made the Nazi comments, and they’ve made that clear on Twitter. Oakes is CEO of its parent company SCL, however, which operates in the same field of election campaigns, and is closely linked to Cambridge Analytica.
Today’s news, then, adds further evidence to the growing pile suggesting that companies and individuals involved in shaping some of the key political campaigns of recent years (including the successful Brexit and Trump campaigns) are drawing on extremely worrying inspirations and methods. I mean, at the point at which the Nazis are your role models…
You can listen to the interview excerpts in question, and read the additional notes from the academic who submitted them, over here.