Carole Cadwalladr, as told to Guardian Staff, 29 Sep 2018<\/p>\n
Observer reporter Carole Cadwalladr on her investigation into the firm at the centre of a data breach that shamed Facebook and exposed foul play in the EU referendum campaign and US presidential election<\/strong><\/p>\n Earlier this year, The Observer and The Guardian broke the story that became the Cambridge Analytica scandal<\/a>. It was the result of a year-long investigation in which Carole Cadwalladr worked with ex-employee turned whistleblower Christopher Wylie to reveal how the data analytics firm that was behind Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign and played a role in Brexit, had used the data harvested from 87 million Facebook users without their consent.<\/em><\/p>\n Cadwalladr\u2019s reporting led to the downfall of Cambridge Analytica and a public apology from Facebook\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg who was forced to testify before congress<\/a>. Facebook has since lost $120 billion from its share price. She won the British Journalism Awards\u2019 Technology Journalism Award<\/a> in December 2017 and the Orwell Prize<\/a> for political journalism in June this year for her work \u201con the impact of big data on the EU Referendum and the 2016 US presidential election\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n One of your first stories investigating Cambridge Analytica<\/a>was published in 2017, but you had been examining the company for some time before that. Can you tell us what prompted you to start looking into it?<\/strong><\/p>\n I first heard the words \u201cCambridge Analytica\u201d just a couple of weeks after the US presidential election. I\u2019d just started researching fake news and had stumbled upon a whole seam of weird and disturbing Google search results. I\u2019d typed \u201care Jews\u201d into Google<\/a> and it had suggested the search \u201care Jews evil?\u201d and when I clicked on that, I got a whole page of results saying they were \u2026 it was a truly jaw-dropping moment. I then discovered an academic in the US called Jonathan Albright who\u2019d just started mapping the fake news network. We had this late-night conversation in which we both quite freaked each other out with what we were finding and he said to me that \u201ccompanies like Cambridge Analytica can use these fake news sites to track readers around the web\u201d. I\u2019d never heard of the company before but I put it in that first article \u2026 and that triggered an angry letter from them that set off the entire chain events that led to where we are today.<\/p>\n One of the early pieces you wrote analysed the connection between Brexit and the US election and the threat to democracy, which became an overarching theme to your reporting on this issue. Take us through what happened in the months after that piece was published<\/strong><\/p>\n The first big piece I did on Cambridge Analytica was in February 2017 and it drew these links between their work on the Brexit campaign and in the USand the shadowy role of [Donald Trump\u2019s former strategist] Steve Bannon and [conservative billionaire] Robert Mercer. It just went off like a bit of a bomb online \u2026 it was the first major piece on Robert Mercer\u2019s role. Jane Mayer, the brilliant New Yorker writer, was in the throes of researching a profile of him for the magazine, it turned out, but that wasn\u2019t published for another month, and people just didn\u2019t know what to make of the article. There were a lot of people saying \u201cthis is really creepy\u201d and a whole load of others saying \u201cthis just reads like a conspiracy theory\u201d. It did immediately have a consequential impact in that it triggered three investigations: one by the Electoral Commission and two by the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office, into spending and what had been done with data, and which then became part of a bigger inquiry, into the use of data in politics. That\u2019s become the biggest data investigation in the world and we know now that the team is also cooperating with the Mueller investigation [into alleged Russian interference in the last US presidential election]. Its final report is coming out this autumn and I really hope that it can answer some of the very many questions about both Cambridge Analytica and, more widely, what happened with data in the referendum.<\/p>\n The revelations then ratcheted up another level again when you reported, based on the evidence of the whistleblower Christopher Wylie<\/a>,<\/strong> that Cambridge Analytica had contracted a Cambridge University academic to harvest the data of millions of Facebook users<\/strong><\/p>\n After that report came out in February I got a lead about another company, a Canadian company with links to Cambridge Analytica, which traded as AggregateIQ. We already knew that Cambridge Analytica had worked for Brexit campaigners. But here was evidence that another company with close links to Cambridge Analytica had worked with the official leave campaign, Vote Leave. It\u2019s illegal for campaigns to coordinate and yet here was this weird, covert link \u2026 which both SCL [Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica] and AggregateIQ promptly denied. I knew there was something there though and I set about tracking down ex-employees. Nobody would talk to me initially, but eventually someone cracked and when he heard about Facebook<\/a> data and Canada, he said to me \u201cyou need find Chris Wylie\u201d. So I did. It just took me another year to help him get into a position where he was prepared to go on the record \u2026<\/p>\n Given the gravity of the revelation in your reporting, and <\/strong>the connections to those in power, how have you dealt with the demands of this investigation and the public denials and the pressure? What has it been like working on this story?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s been \u2026 exhausting, exhilarating, stressful, alarming and at various points, slightly terrifying. The early months last year were among the worst. It felt like the world had turned very dark and I was sitting on a lot of information that implicated a lot of important and powerful people \u2026 and I did worry about that. It\u2019s got easier every time I\u2019ve published \u2013 sunlight is the best disinfectant etc. But it really did take over pretty much every waking hour of my life for a very long time. And it was hard to even explain to family and friends what I was involved in \u2026 every time I tried to explain it, it sounded more preposterous.<\/p>\n What support and encouragement were you given to continue to pursue this story?<\/strong><\/p>\n I have to say that the support of readers was absolutely crucial and was one of the things that enabled me to carry on. Not just because it helped give me the confidence to keep going, but also because it helped give the organisation confidence. It takes a huge amount of resources and resolve for a news organisation to keep publishing in the face of the kind of threats we were facing, and the support of the readers for the story and what we were trying to do really did help give my editors confidence, I think. And I\u2019m really grateful for that.<\/p>\n Can you tell us about the reaction that you personally have received over the past two years while working on this story, including from Guardian readers?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve had lots and lots of messages and I\u2019m ashamed that I didn\u2019t manage to respond to many of them. When the story was unfolding, it was so incredibly busy, I was just overwhelmed by my inbox. And I still haven\u2019t caught up. I suspect people don\u2019t realise how incredibly small the Observer\u2019s team is. I just had to be tunnel-visioned about getting the stories out. But it\u2019s been really amazing and incredibly important to have had the support, especially at moments when it got quite nasty or personal, so I\u2019m very, very grateful. Our readers are the best.<\/p>\n What has stayed with you throughout this investigation to keep you digging away at various elements of the story?<\/strong><\/p>\n Just how powerless and vulnerable we were and still are and how there\u2019s a class of very rich people who are taking advantage of new technologies to amass power and influence for themselves.<\/p>\n What do you think has been the most important element of the reporting and revelations?<\/strong><\/p>\n The aspect of the story that\u2019s had most impact has been the fallout for Facebook, from the collapse in its share price to the ongoing scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators. One of the most important revelations, though, has been about the multiple criminal acts that we now know took place during the referendum \u2026 and it\u2019s also been one of the most frustrating. Many of the allegations have now been proven and yet simply ignored. We seem to have accepted as a country that it\u2019s OK to break the law. I\u2019m struggling with this at the moment as I am with the reluctance to investigate the evidence we produced of Russian interference. Even after Damian Collins, the Conservative MP who is chairing the parliamentary fake news inquiry, made clear calls for the government to say what it was doing, there\u2019s been a deafening silence.<\/p>\n What do you think could guard us against something like this happening in the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our electoral laws need to be completely overhauled. And if Facebook is going to continue to refuse to answer parliament\u2019s questions and answer to lawmakers, I don\u2019t believe it should be allowed to play any role in British elections.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a big question, but what do you think the future holds in terms of data, privacy and the will of the people in <\/strong>elections?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think it\u2019s inevitable that foreign actors and rich individuals will try to manipulate social media platforms. Their methods are only going to get more sophisticated. And while Facebook and Google remain private companies, behind closed doors, beyond the reach of lawmakers, we won\u2019t know how.<\/p>\n