Cambridge analytica a controversial data firm based in UK after it appeared to have had a hand in acquiring and using personal Facebook data in the 2016 United States Elections is also under scrutiny for the role it played in the much controversial Kenyan 2013 and 2017 election.
Cambridge Analytica’s senior officials in expose by Britain’s Channel 4 News revealed that their company played a critical role in 2013 and 2017 to help President Uhuru Kenyatta’s election campaigns.
These revelations are coming just two weeks after President Uhuru and Rt. Hon. Odinga met and reconciled and had the much touted ‘golden handshake’ after months of high political temperatures.
In a series titled, ‘Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks’, Mark Turnbull, an executive at Cambridge Analytica, said the firm rebranded President Uhuru’s party twice, wrote campaign speeches and contacted 50,000 surveys twice to ascertain voters’ fears and hopes.
He goes on to say that they engineered propaganda in a digitized campaign painting Hon. Raila as corrupt, dangerous, violent and a god of poverty, and painting Hon.Uhuru in a positive light.
They used skewed videos on matters that are a major concern to Kenyans, issues that they touched on were, health, terrorism and infrastructure. They went ahead to portrayed Mr. Odinga as Alshabaab sympathizer.
There propaganda campaigns had one message was titled, "Stop Raila Save Kenya.... The Future of Kenya is in Your Hands.
To achieve their goals
In the video Cambridge analytical executives say to achieve their goals they use so many tactics including putting politicians in compromising situations using bribes, sex workers from Ukraine and fake identity.
Nix, the CEO of Cambridge analytica is quoted by Channel for saying, "We'll offer large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the internet.’’
On fake identity
Nix says, “we set up, if we are working then we can set up fake IDs and websites, we can be students doing research projects attached to a university, we can be tourists, there are so many options we can look at……”
However in a statement, Cambridge Analytica said and I quote, “Cambridge analytica does not condone or engage in entrapment, bribes or so called ‘honey traps’,”
So unfortunate even after destroying the country’s democracy on lies and propaganda, lives being lost and tribal rifts increased they will just get away with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment