The British press is exposing President Donald Trump for his Cambridge Analytical scandal.
Political consulting firm Cambridge Analytical — an arm of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — has been suspected of using user identity to mislead targeted voters. According to UK’s Channel 4 News, the data firm had files on 200 million Americans and divided them into eight groups based on information about their domestic and economic status. One group consisting of 3.5 million Black Americans was listed as “deterrence” and targeted with false information to stray them away from siding with Hillary Clinton or voting in general.
According to the publication, the data firm tried to keep Black voters from supporting Clinton by posting ads on their Facebook feeds that portrayed her as a woman who didn’t care much about Black people.
In one of the ads, the campaign included a 1996 video of Clinton addressing gangs, noting she was referring to African Americans. After stating it was important “to have an organised effort against gangs,” Clinton said, “They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators – no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heal.”
The “dark posts” were meant to disappear from feeds once a campaign stopped paying for them, making it difficult to trace the posts made by the data firm in 2016.
The details of the Cambridge Analytical scandal come in the wake of The New York Times’ revelation of Trump’s tax returns over the years. The explosive reports diclosed the president only paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. He reportedly didn’t pay income taxes in 10 out of 15 previous years beginning in 2000 either.
Trump since denied the claims about his taxes and insisted he pays “a lot in state income taxes.”