London: American billionaire Robert Mercer played a key role in Brexit using his company’s AI-powered voter tracking technology, it has been revealed. Cambridge Analytica, heavily funded by Mercer and his family, provided lead Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage with the ability to gather data from “people’s Facebook and other social media profiles”, Britain’s Observer newspaper has claimed.
Cambridge Analytica has spent nearly 25 years in military disinformation campaigns and election management, the report said. The Observer said Mercer allowed “good friend” Farage to use the technology for free. The information gathered from voters’ social media profiles was used to create psychological profiles. The users were then sent targeted ads in an effort to swing the referendum. Mercer, a hedge-fund billionaire, also helped to finance the Trump campaign.
Andy Wigmore, the communication director with the ‘Leave’ campaign said the company was “happy to help”. “What they were trying to do in the US and what we were trying to do had massive parallels. We shared a lot of information,” he was quoted as saying.
