RUSSIANS: Here we go again

With news of another incursion by Putin into our elections, it’s worth considering the facts in a book by Cambridge Analytica’s whistleblower, Brittaney Kaiser, about the methods they used in 2016 to get Trump elected. By the way, he paid millions to access and use the data they collected, illegally.

2,000-5,000 data points were collected by every person in the U.S. over 18. Microtargeting of 520 of these points was selected to influence voting or encouraging folks to not vote at all.

This data modeling was gathered with every click of our mice, including Amazon, Facebook, who we purchased from, all websites we visited, petitions we signed online.

It created psychographics, behavioral psych, to encourage fear of some candidates, in this case Hillary Clinton, so that Trump would be a guaranteed winner. He cheats at golf; why not an election?

The folks involved in this scandalous behavior were prosecuted in both the U.K. and the U.S. Very minimally. So, the question now is are these the folks that Putin is using, or at least their methods, to get Trump reelected? The recent revelations that Trump pooh-poohs would indicate that yes, the same Bad Data is being mined. And we are the victims.

Think you are in control of who gets elected? Hah! The joke is on us. And I don’t find it funny at all.

BARB CRUMPACKER

Coeur d’Alene