I'm sure that by now most people have heard of the young Canadian Christopher Wylie, who blew the whistle on the Cambridge Analytica, and Facebook data mining scam.
And since Wylie once did some work for the Liberals, a few days ago Andrew Scheer was loudly demanding that Justin Trudeau explain any connection he might have to him.
But no longer. Now Scheer is strangely muted, and with good reason.
For as the old saying goes, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
And the Cons are the ones who have something to hide.
Among them, the data mining adventures of Hamish Marshall.
Hamish Marshall, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s campaign manager for the 2019 election, says he’s a “huge fan” of building detailed psychological profiles of Canadian voters and targeting them with personalized political messages.
“Combining psychographic information, demographics about someone’s psychology is extraordinarily useful”– although Marshall cautioned: “it’s not for the faint of heart.”
The uber right-wing nerd who spends his time drilling into the heads of Canadians, and doing for Scheer and his Cons what he once did for Ezra Levant's hate mongering Rebel.
Not unlike Steve Bannon, Marshall’s love for data found synergy with his role as director of an alt-right media outlet, Canada’s Breitbart knock-off: Rebel Media.
Marshall told Maclean’s he was only “involved in helping them with technological and web aspects of the business,” but in actuality, he played a central role harvesting data from Rebel Media viewers and managing their database.
But that's not new. Marshall bragged about his psychographic analysis services back when he was working for his former company Torch.
And before that while working at another company, Go Newclear, he made it clear that him and his merry band of right-wingers see politics as war...
And of course, we already knew that his appointment as Con campaign manager made Scheer's ties to Levant's rebel impossible to deny.
But what is new, and what the Cons would prefer you not notice, is that they already have an individually targeted secret internet war going, like this country has never seen.
With their Facebook ads alone, far outstripping the opposition.
The smallest ad set Thursday was from the NDP. Its ad set had just four ads in it. The Liberals had 25 ads in its ad set and the Conservatives had a whopping 247 ads.
Of the 247 Conservative ads, 240 of them attack 16 different Liberal MPs by name for supporting what the Conservatives call “Trudeau’s values test” — the rule, put in place by the Trudeau government that organizations applying for federal summer job grants had to affirm that they supported a woman’s right to choose.
On YouTube, professional looking ads from unknown sources are proliferating, and even Michelle Rempel's hideous videos come in a bright new packages.
While on Twitter, all kinds of new sites supporting the Cons are multiplying like mushrooms...
It's hard to tell a real site from a bot.
Fake news is everywhere.
And with Cons like these running this internet horror show...
I think it's safe to say that it's only going to get worse.
So it's probably time that progressives started fighting back, or at the very least asking some hard questions:
Why is Hamish Marshall, the co-founder of a hate mongering site like the Rebel working for the Cons?
What exactly are him and his merry band of Cons up to, and have we seen this show before?
And lastly but not leastly, are we ready to make sure that those right-wing extremists don't steal the election?
For if we do not stop them, that is exactly what they will do...
23 comments:
If Wylie had cut his teeth with Harper in 2009, instead of with Dion and Iggy, and then received a $100,000 contract from the Cons in 2016, we'd both want to know what he was up to. And I fully agree that it's time progressives started asking some hard questions. Let's start by having the Libs explain exactly what they hired Wylie to do in 2016.
every trick in the book cons, the northern republicans
Our media refuses to touch this.
Brexit and the US election Wylie was involved in featured the Republicans disseminating hate towards Muslims, LGBT, women, etc. The liberals did not do this. The NDP did not do this . The Greens did not do this. In Canada the Conservatives were the party of hate speech on Facebook and Twitter.
The data is not the problem, the useage is. Sheer runs a hotemongering party.
Get coffee?
Now explain why Scheer is hiring Ezra's castoffs.
This is terrifying. At this point, law enforcement needs to get involved. This is the digital equivalent of the cons' infamous Robocall scandal, and a duplicate of what Analytica did for Trump and Brexit. As Rumleyfips above said, it's all about hatemongering: racism against Indigenous people, Asian people, and brown people (especially those with turbans), misogynistic abuse of women and LGBT people hiding behind "religious freedom," and the most disgusting homophobia and now even death threats against Justin Trudeau and even his young children. Levant's Internet-driven "Youthquake" that started with the first rumbles of Koch money has turned into a full-blown weapon of mass destruction. Let's not forget either that it was Rebel Media that tried to sway the French elections by publishing the phony "Macron Leaks," or that the mosque shooter had become self-radicalized by a barrage of targeted disinfo propaganda favoring Marine Le Pen.
Call or write your MPs, the Minister of Democratic Institutions, and the PM himself, and demand that Marshall be the one to testify before a parliamentary committee, and Scheer be brought before the ethics commissioner. What the hell was he doing in Britain anyway cheering on the biggest disaster for the U.K. since the bombing of London in 1940? Democrats in Congress and -- surprisingly -- all the major parties in the U.K. are demanding that Zuckerberg and Dorsey testify in their chambers. The Liberals (and the NDP if they can take a break from their own idiotic anti-Trudeau tantrums) should do the same. Holiday vacations are nothing compared to the outright hijacking of democracy by dark money and hate.
He is Scheer Evil is what he is. Protests should be registered in the streets. If the Ku Klux Kons steal the election -- yes, steal it, for at this point there is no legitimate way any conservative party can fairly win on issues alone -- and turn Canada into GOP dystopia north, Canadians will end up dead. The sociopathic Crappers will shrug with nothing but thoughts and prayers.
Don't do it, Canada. As an American I beg you, don't do it. The cons are lying to you and Hamish Marshall is the Joseph Goebbels of Canada. "If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes indistinguishable from truth." Not for the faint of heart indeed -- he doesn't even have one in the first place.
Seriously. Time to get cracking and everyone register their disapproval of this disgusting and fraudulent behavior.
Send a note to Carole Cadwalladr at The Guardian, who's been doing some stellar investigative work on the Analytica story, and Ashifa Kassam at their Toronto desk asking them to look into Marshall. If his and Scheer's ugly mugs end up plastered all over a mainstream and credible international news outlet that's known for running hard-hitting news, they'll have no choice but to answer for their activities. The con media will have no choice but to pick it up.
@jrkrideau -- Wylie himself said that he switched to doing digital wet work for UKIP and the GOP; he preferred working for conservatives versus liberals and progressives because, in his own words, "evil pays more." Says a lot about the Conservative/Republican brand these days, doesn't it? Very, very fine people. The best.
Whether he and Marshall ever crossed paths at AIQ would be an interesting thing to find out, but ultimately irrelevant. Marshall is a clone of Wylie without the pink hair. Same M.O. and same tactics. Robocall scandal 2.0. Levant, meanwhile, has been a hatemongering shit disturber since his teenage years and is long overdue for a late-night knock at the door from the RCMP.
The CPC must be fumigated, and everyone in Levant's circle thrown in prison. The Tories, like the GOP, are a threat to democracy and to the lives of millions of people.
The Scheer are in my opinion worse than the Harper Cons, and should they ever form a government this country would never recover. We need to find out what Hamish Marshall is up to, and whether there is any funny business going on. For example did Andrew Scheer meet with Cambridge Analytica when he was in London on that fake "trade mission?"
Doug Ford is Trump of the North. So game of Thrones
all people think they are smart. this is a lie. people are like pavlovs dog and will react to the bell. we are talking about throwing turkeys from helicopters at Easter.
Thanks for the post Simon, perhaps its powered by a small minibus but with enough perseverance and a little luck it has the potential to transition into a Saturn 5 rocket transporting the Reformers to a special place in the dust bin of history. Scheer and his high density crew have bet the farm on Marshall the high priest of herding psychometric zombies. The number of Con ads are far greater than the 247 you list if all of the Trudeau bashing "news" and "commentary" sites with no visible means of support are included. The Brits are very interested in the role Canadian companies such as AggregateIQ and Rebel media might have played in the Brexit vote. As Jackie has suggested perhaps TheGaurdian could be convinced to investigate. As you have stated its all there in plain sight which is somewhat surprising as this type of election hatchet job is usually very intense but short lived with the hired guns doing their job, covering their tracks and moving on. Hopefully everything is as it appears with the high priest leading the zombies into the wilderness and not a precursor to a far more powerful covenant of zombie herders near election time. Never under estimate the enemy.
RT
thank you for the reminder regarding the Cons back ground. Nice to see those who work for the organization. Now its time that information got out into newspapers all over the country so people know who we really have in office.
I expect some of these "individuals" will be test driving their "techniques' in the upcoming Ontario provincial election.
For example did Andrew Scheer meet with Cambridge Analytica when he was in London on that fake "trade mission?
Possibly the wrong question. "Did any of Andrew Scheer's entourage meet with Cambridge Analytica" might be just as revealing.
hi anon@10:48...Wylie has explained what he was asked to do by the Liberals, and it has nothing to do with Cambridge Analytica. And after he submitted his proposal the Liberals didn't buy it. So you're barking up the wrong tree, and you should focus on what the Cons are trying to do right now...
hi Steve...yes, they are trying every dirty trick in the book, but luckily we're on to them, and with a little bit of luck they may bring themselves down...
hi anon@1:16 PM...no, the Con media have always given Hamish Marshall a pass, claiming that he's too much of a nice guy to do anything bad. But when he goes down, and he will, so will his media accomplices....
hi rumleyfips...thanks for summing up the situation so well. It's not the data, it's the way it's used. All parties use it, but the Cons are the bigots....
hi Jackie....I agree with you, I think what the Cons are doing is disgusting, and they should be reined in. But our Con media is too biased or too mediocre to even understand what's happening, let alone do anything about it. So it will be up to us to expose Scheer and his Bot Army, and we will...
hi anon@6:00 PM...it took me a long time to accept that any Cons could be worse than the Harper ones, but I'm slowly coming to terms with that idea. Scheer or Schmear is so disgusting and so un-Canadian that he may well be worse than Harper. And he must never be given a chance to prove it, for I doubt this country would survive him...
hi RT...you're welcome, and I credit you for motivating me to look at the internet games the Cons are playing. Unfortunately I was too tired to do the story justice, and I was forced to leave a lot of stuff out. But we will have time to investigate further, Canadians need to know what those monstrous Cons are up to. And as you point out, the zombie herders are a clear and present danger to the integrity and fairness of the next election. So there couldn't be anything more important...
No, Simon, Wylie has not explained anything about what he did for the Libs in 2016. The Libs have offered several vague and conflicting explanations ranging from he did nothing at all to he was paid $100,000 for a pilot project that went nowhere. Given what Wylie has done for other organizations, we're owed a much better explanation.
Every day, I share articles from differing news agencies to my FB. I forward every share with a brief breakdown of the contents on the article. I have been doing this for months and not one of my friends shares the information I have provided. I have shared information about Malcolm Nance and his opinions about what is happening in the US and the world. I have shared information about Bill Browder and his warning that Putin is pissed at Canada for passing Magnitsky. I have shared The articles from the UN, FBI and our own Intelligence agencies, warning that Russia will interfere, not only in our federals, but provincials as well. I have made it very clear, that our MSM are not doing their jobs, that they are not calling Andrew Scheer and his toadies out on their connections to The Rebel and the alt right. I barely even get a like from people. Their willful ignorance astounds me. This is our country and right now, the only thing standing between us and becoming the mess that the US turning into, is Prime Minister Trudeau. But all we keep hearing about is "oh, look at those stupid socks" and "why was Atwal in India". This man is working his ass off to try and keep our country free, and the only people who know what he is really doing, are those of us who take the time to search for the truth. Every time we see a headline that sounds like "opposite day Trudeau" we search for the whole story. Every time Mr. Scheer posts another one of his Rebel inspired memes, we find the reality, and post it in response, to expose his lies. The Progressive Conservatives have faded into the past, their replacement is the Tea Party north. They need to be shut down and hopefully demoted to third party status.
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