Mindfuck Read online

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  GETTING THE REQUIRED DATA to build Jucikas’s envisioned targeting system would not be easy, but it was possible, due to a fluke of history in some parts of the developing world. Although there was substantial underdevelopment of traditional telecommunications infrastructure, largely stemming from corruption and the neglectful legacies of colonial administrations, some of the world’s poorest countries had leapfrogged generations of technology, achieving impressive advances in mobile networks.

  In Kenya, for example, local laws and customs made it difficult for some people to get a bank account, leading to a system in which Kenyans used cash to buy mobile phone credits, which could then be traded as a kind of digital currency. In fact, we found that people in many poorer nations distrusted banks, having lived through economic crises, hyperinflation, and bank collapses, and used the same mobile workaround. This setup meant that everybody needed a phone, and that it needed to work well, so that in otherwise impoverished nations, there’d been rapid investment in relatively decent mobile infrastructure.

  One unintended consequence of having large pluralities of citizens connected via mobile phone networks was that everybody could be traced, tracked, profiled, and communicated with. Jihadist networks such as ISIS, AQAP, and Boko Haram had already figured this out, taking advantage of easy access to the minds of future conquests. And that turned the rules of warfare upside down.

  Next we needed a case study—a location where we could scale to a nation-state level, to show potential military clients what we were capable of doing. Trinidad and Tobago, with 1.3 million people, fit the bill perfectly. It was an island nation, self-contained yet with a variety of cultures. There was an Afro-Caribbean population, an Indo-Caribbean population, and a smattering of white people, creating an interesting cultural tension to explore. It was an ideal laboratory in which to run our experiments at scale.

  The Trinidad Ministry of National Security wanted to know whether it was possible to use data to identify Trinidadians who were more likely to commit crimes—and, beyond that, whether it was possible to predict when and how they might do it. SCL had a long history of operating throughout the various micronations of the Caribbean, and after it helped selected politicians get into power, the firm would often recoup its investment in government contracts. At SCL, we started referring to this as the Minority Report Project, after the Philip K. Dick story (adapted for film by Steven Spielberg) in which a futuristic PreCrime Division arrests people before they’re able to commit crimes. But the truth was, the Trinidadian government wasn’t interested only in reducing crime. They knew that if we built a tool to forecast behavior, they could use it in elections. They weren’t just focused on future criminals; they also wanted to zero in on future political supporters.

  The team anticipated vast swaths of data, because senior Trinidad government contacts were offering SCL access to the unredacted, de-anonymized census—in the developing world, privacy is a concern usually reserved for the rich. Essentially the Trinidadian government was violating the privacy of all its citizens in one swoop.

  The raw census data would obviously be useful for the project, but it wasn’t a resource we could expect to have available to us in developed countries. SCL needed to explore using the Internet to collect relevant data, to create a tool that would be cross-culturally and cross-nationally applicable. So SCL’s next step was to send people on the ground to Caribbean telecom companies, to ask if SCL could tap into their data “firehose” in real time. To my surprise, this was possible.

  Working with a set of contractors, SCL was able to tap into the telecom firehose, pick an IP address, and then sit and watch what a person in Trinidad was browsing on the Internet at that very moment. Not surprisingly, it was a lot of porn. People were browsing everything imaginable, including the culturally specific “Trini Porn.” I can remember sitting around the computer one evening and watching as someone toggled between looking up plantain recipes and watching porn, all while Nix laughed at them. It was a revoltingly giddy laugh, almost infantile. He looked up the IP address and then opened up Google Maps satellite view to see the neighborhood this person lived in.

  As Nix watched the screen, I began to watch him, taking such deep, nasty pleasure in the chance to ridicule and exploit others. It was classic Nix—or “Bertie,” as his pompous peers called him. Like many Old Etonians, he excelled at banter, flirtation, and entertainment. The directors of SCL assigned him to lead the firm’s side business of rigging elections in forgotten countries of Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia. It was with cabinet ministers of micronations that Nix was completely in his element. Performing the role of the English gentleman, he would give these politicians access to anything they wanted in the old imperial capital of London—the prestigious clubs frequented by royals and prime ministers, invitations to exclusive parties, or, if desired, the private company of elegant and open-minded women.

  Nix preyed upon the colonial fetishes and insecurities of the men who ran the nations of the empire. Once he gained their trust, he would then broker deals between ministers who were looking for validation and women, and businessmen who were looking to exploit corrupt business opportunities and travel unnoticed. Sovereignty, Nix learned, was an extremely valuable commodity. Even the smallest and most obscure island nation could offer two things of exceptional value: passports and tax immunity. He had inherited tens of millions of pounds and never needed to work. He could have dedicated his life to noble pursuits or simply settled into a life of leisure, sponging off his trust fund. But instead he chose SCL. Nix couldn’t help himself—he was intoxicated by power. Born too late to play colonial master in the old British Empire, he treated SCL as the modern equivalent. As Nix put it in one of our meetings, he got to “play the white man.” “They [are] just niggers,” he once said to a colleague in an email, referring to black politicians in Barbados.

  We were spying, pure and simple, with cover from Trinidadian leaders. It felt bizarre—unreal—to be observing what people were watching on a tiny, faraway island, somehow more like we were playing a video game than intruding on the private lives of actual people. Even today, thinking back on it, Trinidad seems more like a dream than something we actually did.

  But we did do it. The Trinidad project was the first time I got sucked into a situation that was grossly unethical, and, frankly, it triggered in me a state of denial. As I watched those livestreams, I didn’t allow myself to actually picture the human prey, people who had no idea that their private behavior was delighting sinister audiences half a world away. The Trinidad project was my first taste of this new wave of digital colonialism. We arrived unannounced with our superior technology and moral disregard, no better than the king’s armies. Except this time, unlike the conquerors of old, we were completely invisible.

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  ALREADY, IN MY EARLY months of working with Nix, it had become clear that he had no real business ethics—or personal ethics, for that matter. He seemed willing to go to any lengths to win a project, and he’d peacock around the office bragging about this deal or that deal. He described everything in terms of sexual conquest: in the early stages of negotiations, the two sides were “feeling each other up” or “slipping in a finger.” When a deal closed, he’d exclaim, “Now we’re fucking!”

  In August 2013, not long after the Rabaa massacre, representatives of the Egyptian government came to London for meetings. This was one of the early movements where social media and instant messaging on mobile apps played a significant role in mobilization. The Egyptians we met were interested in using our information programs to combat what they called “political extremists.” Several scenarios were discussed about how to create havoc within the movement, including starting rumors to spread through mobile messaging or riling up crowds with planted confederates and arresting protestors. This wasn’t the kind of project I’d expected SCL to take
on, and I felt morally opposed to what they were asking us to do. It was here that I was confronted with the very subjective meaning of counter-extremism. It seemed entirely hypocritical to, on the one hand, frustrate jihadist groups in places like Pakistan and then, on the other, assist an autocratic and Islamist-backed regime in Egypt in creating its own tyranny of people. But Nix didn’t care. Business was business; he just wanted to clinch the deal.

  The main challenge for me and the growing team of psychologists and data scientists at SCL was in the objective substance of extremism itself. What does it mean to be an extremist? What exactly is extremism, and how can you model it? These were subjective definitions, and clearly the Egyptian government had one idea, while we had another. But if you want to be able to quantify and predict a trait, you have to be able to create a definition of it. We went around and around, discussing the question in theoretical terms, but the reality of it felt sobering: Extremism is whatever you want it to be. In the end, SCL didn’t undertake the project, so I just compartmentalized my concerns and kept working.

  I began trying to avoid Nix at the office—everyone did, because he behaved so repulsively. His efforts to take me under his wing—to remake me in his image—were a dismal failure. Our backgrounds were too different, for starters. Even if I didn’t find Nix’s arrogance and snobbery appalling, I never could have disguised myself as a “respectable” Old Etonian, and his constant hectoring—what to wear, how to speak, etc.—only made me more self-conscious. We did occasionally bond over a mutual fondness for good whisky, but mostly I kept my distance.

  The projects that most engaged me were those that were doing some good in the world, such as programs to de-radicalize what the military affectionately called the YUMs—young unmarried males—in the Middle East and root out jihadist behavior. I found ways to justify staying, reasoning that even if Nix was obviously a villain, there were still lots of good people working for SCL. I decided just to keep my head down and keep working.

  In late 2013, I was asked to join a meeting with a potential client in an African nation. This would be a political project, I was told, involving targeting voters ahead of an upcoming election. I didn’t know much about the country, but I assumed we could get hold of the necessary data through mobile networks or public sources, so I said “Sure.” We met with the client, who turned out to be the country’s minister of health, at an expensive restaurant in London.

  At first, the discussion ran more or less as I’d expected. We talked about what services the client needed and how SCL could provide them. Then the conversation turned to how the project could be funded, and the firm made a proposal: The client could leverage an existing multi-million-dollar project for the country’s ministry of health, and SCL would quietly be added as a subcontractor, dipping into the project’s budget to conduct political research. Afterward, another staff member followed up with an email: “The health component of a larger survey will act as a prelude to an election campaign,” and noted, “the political component has also been approved.” The email went on to explain that the ministry of health survey would include questions about voting behavior and support for the current administration. Of course, using taxpayer funds from the ministry of health for political campaigns is unlawful.

  I said nothing during the meeting, but afterward I went to see Alexander. “This can’t be legal,” I told him. To which he replied, “You can’t expect anything legal with these people. It’s Africa.”

  Nix was extremely good at getting people to doubt themselves, and throughout my time at SCL, I kept falling for it. Other times, he was less convincing. One time he took me onto the roof, high above our new offices on New Bond Street, for a “man-to-man,” where he offered me a horse if I helped win a project. He had lots of horses, apparently. I said I didn’t want one. “Oh, right,” he said. “A pony for you, then.” After speaking to him, I often wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be feeling—offended by what he’d said or embarrassed at my naïveté.

  I couldn’t believe that the African project would play out as planned, but it did. SCL created a proposal for a subcontract and submitted it for approval with the ministry of health. Over a period of many months, as the health-related projects proceeded, some of the money—millions of dollars—did not actually go to ministry of health programs. It was split between the minister’s political campaign and SCL, with SCL’s cut arriving from the country’s embassy in diplomatic bags so that they could bypass any border inspection or declaration. I removed myself from the project early on, recognizing that it was morally and legally beyond the pale.

  The deeper I got into SCL’s projects, the more the office culture seemed to be clouding my judgment. Over time, I was acclimatizing to their corruption and moral disregard. Everyone was excited about the discoveries we were making, but how far were we willing to go in the name of this new field of research? Was there a point at which someone would finally say Enough is enough? I didn’t know, and in truth, I didn’t want to think about it. And that was when Nix sent me an email: “I’d like you to meet Steve from America.”

  CHAPTER 4

  STEVE FROM AMERICA

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  I must have dozed off, because the conductor’s announcement startled me: “Alight here for Cambridge!” It was October 2013, and I’d woken up that morning at 5:00 to make the 6:40 train out of London’s Victoria Station. Nix had booked me on the early one to save himself five pounds. I jumped out of my seat and accidentally knocked into the elderly lady beside me. She just glared, clutching her purse, as English people do. I was running out, looking back to say sorry, when I tripped. “Mind the gap!” Too late.

  I stood up, only to realize that I’d somehow misplaced my wallet, and then watched in dread as the train slowly pulled out of the station. Ugh. Without cash or cards, I called Nix and asked him to book a prepaid taxi. “Walk there,” he said. “You should have been more careful.” I was too tired to argue, and he was clearly in a mood, so I did as Nix said—I walked, departing the station into the mist and drizzle of an early October morning. Cambridge was just starting to wake up.

  With several hours to kill before my appointment, I meandered through Parker’s Piece, a small common green, as student-athletes began a morning practice against a backdrop of a church steeple peeking through the trees. From there, I walked through the town’s winding medieval stone streets, past small shops and the towering walls of England’s second-oldest university, dating back to the year 1209. After continuing to Thompson’s Lane, near the River Cam, I arrived at the small but clearly expensive Varsity Hotel.

  Working with a military contractor, I met all sorts of bizarre characters, most of whom had a strong desire for “absolute discretion”—it wasn’t the least bit unusual to not know the full identity of a person before the first meeting. The day before, Nix had come into the office looking slightly agitated and walked immediately over to me, where he put both his hands on my desk and leaned into my face. “I need you to meet someone tomorrow in Cambridge,” he said. “I can’t get into his head, but I think you can.”

  I asked who I’d be meeting.

  “I’ll email you the details later.”

  In this case, the extremely unhelpful instruction I got from Nix was simply to meet “Steve from America,” with no details beyond a request that I “bring data.”

  I sat alone in the hotel lobby for an hour before texting Nix, asking for Steve’s number. He read the text but didn’t respond. After another fifteen minutes, this gruff character walked up and looked me over.

  “You the guy?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I am,” I replied. Based on the clients SCL normally had, I’d expected some government or agency type. Instead I found myself looking at a disheveled man wearing two collared shirts, as if he’d forgotten to take one off before putting the next one on. He was unshaven, with greasy hair and that layer of grime you get from a transatlantic flight. H
is eyes showed flecks of bright red that matched the web of rosacea on his skin. In all, the vibe he gave off fell somewhere between used-car salesman and madman. He looked tired or dazed; I assumed it was just jet lag.

  The elevator was a classic English setup that barely had room for two, meaning I had to work hard not to touch this guy. I was wearing monochromatic Dries Van Noten—dark navy suit trousers with a matching overshirt that blended like an obliquely cut Maoist jumpsuit.

  “You weren’t what I’d imagined,” he half joked. Yeah, you aren’t such a looker yourself, hun…

  He was staying in a suite on the top floor. Save for the bold wallpaper on an accent wall, the décor was minimal and modernist, which made for a stark contrast with the panoramic view of the medieval city below. The absence of luggage seemed weird, but not worth dwelling on. Then I hesitated. Oh, wait, I’m alone in a posh hotel room with some old guy. I looked over at the king bed, then noticed a little bottle of hand lotion on the table next to it. Fuck, fuck, fuck—was Nix using me as bait?

  I clutched my bag, hoping the laptop inside was heavy enough to land an effective blow. At that moment, Steve Bannon walked over to the large sofa adjacent to the bed and offered me a seat. To my extreme relief, he grabbed a chair for himself and asked if I wanted some water. As he sat down, his stomach spilled over his waistline.

  “Nix tells me you’re doing research on cultural change,” he said. “Tell me about that.”

  I told him we were using computers to quantify cultural trends and predict how they will evolve in places at risk for extremism. “We try to glimpse into the destiny of cultures,” I said, aiming to distill decades’ worth of computational and social theory. Bannon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can cut the bullshit and tell me what it is you actually do.”

  We talked for four hours—not only about politics but about fashion and culture, Foucault, the third-wave feminist Judith Butler, and the nature of the fractured self. On the surface, Bannon seemed utterly predictable—another old, straight white guy—but he spoke with a certain wokeness I hadn’t expected at all. In fact, I quickly decided he was kind of cool. As we started trading ideas on measuring culture, I offered to show him some of our data. I opened a Tableau workbook and called up a map of Trinidad. I clicked a button and a layer of neon-yellow dots began to populate the map. “Those are real people, by the way,” I said. “They are the ones we have demographic data on…gender, age, ethnicity.”