Trump campaign to dissuade Black Americans from voting in 2016 election, ‘disgruntled Americans’ according to ‘Channel 4’ report

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Using a database collected in part by the company Cambridge Analytica, the Trump digital campaign team characterized voters in major swing states as “deterrent,” or voters they want to stay home on election day, African Americans make up an odd amount of those voters, Channel 4 News reported on Monday.

CNN has not looked at the data obtained by Channel 4 News and cannot verify the findings.

Channel 4 journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy said on Tuesday that “it is impossible to measure the impact of the alleged voter campaign on targeted voters,” revealing the motivations behind what the Trump campaign was trying to do. . ”

“They were trying to prevent people from voting because they knew they couldn’t win them,” said Becky Anderson of CNN International on Tuesday.

While there were several reasons that Clinton did not win in 2016, an important factor was that she did not activate enough Black, Latino and young voters to show the elections and win them the White House. He lost traditionally blue-tilted states like Wisconsin, where Clinton was considered favored and did not tour the state as a Democratic candidate. A 2016 exit poll showed a strong distaste for both Trump and Clinton, but voters who expressed negative feelings for both candidates broke in Trump’s favor.

According to exit polls, black voters voted 12% of voters in 2016 and Clinton over Trump in 2016. According to the Pew Research Center, the 2016 presidential election saw a decline in black voter turnout rates for the first time in 20 years.

The Trump campaign responded to a CNN investigation about the Channel 4 report, calling it “fake news” and insisting that Trump “has built a relationship of trust with African American voters” by creating new opportunities and criminal justice reform Has been applied.

According to Channel 4 News, they did not answer specific questions about the database, which contained information about 200 million American voters.

According to Channel 4, the Trump digital campaign targeted “preventive” voters with Facebook ads attacking Clinton, including a video rekindling the Democratic candidate’s previous “super predator” comments. The Trump campaign’s strategy of “microtreating” is legal, Channel 4 News reported, and is used by other campaigns, political strategy firms, and interest groups.

Cambridge Analytica, which ceased operations in 2018, allegedly acquired information on nearly 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge.

Christopher Wyllie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee who whistled at the alleged misuse of Facebook data, testified before Congress in 2018 that the company offered services to discourage voting from targeted sections of the American population.

In comments made to CNN after the hearing, Wyllie alleged that Black Americans were specific targets of Cambridge Analytica’s “voter disengagement strategy”, which he said was intended to “discourage or dissuade certain types of people from voting” “, And they were campaign and political action committees requesting voter suppression from Cambridge Analytica.

In 2016, Trump campaign digital director Brad Parscale told Bloomberg in October 2016 that the campaign was posting that “only the people we want to see it, see it.” The outlet reported that the goal of those positions was to “suppress the total Clinton vote.” “We know because we modeled it,” the official says. “This will dramatically affect their ability to drive these people out.” ”

Parscale later told PBS’s “Frontline” in November 2018, “I’d say I’m almost 100 percent sure that we didn’t run any campaigns that were targeted … African Americans, people who consider them crazy.”

Facebook is facing renewed scrutiny during the 2020 election following its role in the 2016 cycle, including as a tool for Russian mediation in the US election and for spreading misinformation.

A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to CNN, “Elections have changed since 2016 and Facebook has changed. What happened to Cambridge Analytica may not happen today.” “We have 35,000 people working to ensure the integrity of our platform, created a political advertising library, and protected more than 200 elections worldwide. We also have rules prohibiting the suppression of voters And are running the largest voter information campaign in American history. “

tech2.org

Trump campaign to dissuade Black Americans from voting in 2016 election, ‘disgruntled Americans’ according to ‘Channel 4’ report

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