Robert Muller investigates Cambridge Analytica and possible involvement with Russiagate

The head of the Special Counsel investigation of Russian interference in 2016 United States elections, Robert Muller, wants to clarify the links between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Cambridge Analytica. The American media are reporting that Muller’s assistants are investigating President Trump’s payment of 6 million dollars to the British firm. It also seems certain that at some point there have been contacts between Cambridge Analytica and Russia. Yania Ledovaya teaches at the faculty of Psychology at the University of St. Petersburg, and she told the online newspaper Meduza that she had met Alex Kogan, the inventor of the app that collected data from 50 millions Facebook users, in 2013, "by chance". Kogan (from the Russian media seems to have another surname, Spektor), is of Russian origin, born in Moldova and lived up to 8 years in Moscow, before moving with his parents to the United States: "He speaks Russian, but he does not read it and he does not write it”, says Professor Ledovaya.  She also added: "Now we are called Russian trolls, and it is believed that the roots of Cambridge Analytica lead to the university where Putin used to study.” Kogan went to Russia simply because he was curious about his homeland. When in St. Petersburg he was invited by his Russian colleagues to give lessons regarding the use of social media. He used to say: “I can find out 100 things about you without even knowing you.”  The lessons Kogan delivered were very popular and soon the state funded them. “We needed foreign professors, and he was young, dynamic, he dealt with interesting things and he spoke Russian as well” says Ledovaya. Kogan has worked for two years with his Russian colleagues in St. Petersburg on social profiling. “Nothing political,” says Ledovaya, “the final aim of those researches was to understand if from social posts you could identify psychologically vulnerable people, to whom ads with contactable free service centres would have been sent." Another main aspect of those researches was to identify and block the users who showed a negative, narcissistic, manipulative and psychopathic profile. Ledovaya tells Meduza that the researches are interesting, but not conclusive, and she expresses professional scepticism towards the micro targeting advertised by Cambridge Analytica: “I have never seen a research that confirm the effectiveness of those personalized messages, and my experience makes me doubt that you just tell an anxious user “Trump will protect you” to get him up from his home couch and go to vote  for him.” The total control of data is certainly not a novelty in Russian history, and the craft of “polit-tekhnolog”, already counts two generations of brilliant scholars and manipulators of public opinion. However, in the electoral campaigns in Russia it is believed that the television plays still the main role not the tools of microsurgery on the web, mainly territory of the opposition. Alexander Nix, head of the SCL Group, firm very close to Cambridge Analytica, denied any ties to Moscow. However, the New York Times has obtained SCL promotional materials where Russia is on the map of the countries where the group works. Christopher Wylie, the collaborator of Cambridge Analytica who unveiled the machinations with user data, says he had a meeting with the managers of Lukoil, the second Russian oil company, very close to the government. According to the press offices of the stakeholders, Lukoil and SLC were contacted twice, in Great Britain and Turkey, for several promotional activities such as sponsorship of football teams. However, nothing ever materialized. Wylie argues – and an anonymous source of the New York Times confirms his version – that there has been talks of profiling American voters, and that it seemed to him that the Russians were not interested in this kind of project.

Hypotheses, allusions and conspiracies, but nothing certain. RT, the international Russian TV of the Kremlin, stated that the Facebook scandal “will soon be forgotten” and “not cause any damage to Donald Trump” because it represents no interest in the American establishment: “it does not allow to discredit Russia”, it is also said.

Translated and summarized by Giuseppe Loporchio

Source:  La Stampa - Anna Zafesova