Sign in / up

back to article WikiLeaks took 10 days to reject Cambridge Analytica's US emails bid, says Tricksy Nixy

A defiant Alexander Nix has told MPs the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal was caused by lying media and the only person to trust is the one who wrote the app that quietly harvested personal data on more than 80 million people. The ex-CEO at CA started the hearing in a tense standoff with Commons Culture, Media and Sport …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *
  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    "I think other business meetings are not steered by an undercover reporter who is deliberately trying to entrap you," a tart Nix shot back.

    Sure. Wannabie rulers of sub-Saharan Africa "democracies" have much higher moral standards. As reflected by Cambridge Analytica produced (and proven) election materials for them, right?

    17 1 Reply
    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      If other business meetings are not an entrapment attempt, it may just be because other business meetings are between normally dishonest business people doing normally dishonest business and not between some shady person in search of scum to do even more shady stuff.

      Coming from the guy who vouched to provide prostitutes to ruin people's reputations, I find this remark particularly rich.

      23 0 Reply
    2. graeme leggett Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      I think he overlooks that by claiming he was manipulated during the undercover filming it means that he is not actually a sophisticated businessman at the top of his game (as he might like to think) but an privately educated dolt who is an easy mark for a journalist.

      13 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's the odds CA executives see themselves as actual heroes or 'the-good-guys' here

    In another era... You can see these upper-class elites in an English country club somewhere sipping brandy, after dispatching a crack team of 'data mercenaries' to a war-torn part of Africa...

    With the single goal of starting an illicit war to capture mining or oil interests for some shady firm back home. Modelling themselves on Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Anthony Hopkins reborn... Doing God's work, just like Goldman Sachs...

    It'd be great if Nix and Zuk and lets not forget Theil & Palantir and their involvement, got sent to the same room Assange lives out of. No one is buying it was just one-or-two-rogue-employees-at-Palantir 'lie', are we?

    14 1 Reply
    1. Alan Brown Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: What's the odds CA executives see themselves as actual heroes or 'the-good-guys' here

      _Everybody_ sees themselves as the good guys.

      They'll come up with all sorts of reasoning to justify it too.

      6 0 Reply
      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: What's the odds CA executives see themselves as actual heroes or 'the-good-guys' here

        _Everybody_ sees themselves as the good guys.

        I know this is common wisdom, but anecdotal evidence1 suggests it's not true.

        Certainly I've known a number of people in positions of influence who have flat-out admitted they don't give a damn whether they're "good" - as perceived by themselves, or by others, or in accordance with any articulated ethical scheme. They're simply amoral and perfectly happy to be that way.

        I've also known a smaller number of people who thought what they were doing was bad, and felt some degree of discomfort over it. (You may be familiar with a vestigial concept in Western thought called the "conscience".) Admittedly this seems to be rather less common.

        1Which suffices, since you claimed universality.

        0 0 Reply
  3. JassMan
    Trollface

    My god! I have just become slightly less cynical

    The story mentions 2 MPs Damian Collins and Christian Matheson who not only know how to ask the right questions of people with a distorted sense of reality, but whose past actions show them to men of integrity. And there I was thinking that all politicians were less trustworthy than used car salesmen. What is even more amazing is that one is Conservative and the other Labour.

    I just hope they get enough distortions of the truth from Nix in committee, that they have sufficient evidence to to have him declared unfit to be involved in the management of any company present or future. Better still if they can get him to admit that there is more than a reasonable chance that CA managed to affect the votes of ~700K people (not the 17.4M that brexit supporters claim would have been needed)

    23 0 Reply
  4. anothercynic Silver badge

    You should read Carole Cadwalladr's live commentary...

    ... During this debate. It is truly hilarious.

    Nix sneeringly referred to her as 'Carole in the Guardian'. That amused her to no end.

    The crowning moment was when she posted:

    Nix has now gone full Etonian. Never go full Etonian.

    "I THINK we have now concluded, and we are ALL in agreement that Cambridge Analytica undertook no work in Britain."

    -- Twitter

    Ohhhhhh yes... dissed and dismissed.

    13 0 Reply
  5. Mark 85

    After watching (reading actually) many of these tech type bigwigs in front of governmental officials, I have believe that they are of the same ilk as most politicians, i.e.: You can tell they're lying because their lips are moving.

    7 0 Reply
    1. ecofeco Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Of course they have a lot in common. They both picked the right parents.

      5 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the statements of the various parties involved contradict each other

    then someone must be not telling the Truth.

    If offences may have been committed then this should be determined by a Court of Law.

    1 0 Reply
  7. Daniel Garcia 2

    E-merd-data

    Sounds shitty.

    1 0 Reply
  8. DCFusor
    Unhappy

    Assange

    Is a hero to some, not "everyone's least favorite". Maybe a flawed hero...but still, making assumptions about what "everyone thinks" is what failed politicians do. Just touting the line from a government he's embarrassed because *they break their own laws* but expect us to follow them?

    2 0 Reply
  9. Rick From Texas

    To hell with Cambridge Analytica and Alexander Nix, the world's a better place without them.

    0 0 Reply
    1. David 164
      Reply Icon

      Except we aren't in a world without them. They have just rebranded and no doubt will rebrand again when the media attention as died down or another scandal hit them.

      0 0 Reply

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like