
Whistleblower: Google Boss' Daughter Scrubbed from Guardian Exposé - k1m
https://www.thedailybeast.com/whos-a-whistleblower-gonna-trust-ask-christopher-wylie-about-the-guardian-and-cambridge-analytica
======
kjksf
I don't quite get why people are mad at Schmidt and not the Guardian for shady
reporting.

So a woman interned at SLC Elections (which later became Cambridge Analytica)
and now works at Uber.

After reading the story I fail to see her significance to the story of the
Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The author of that piece is trying to make a fact that she's the daughter of
Eric Schmidt into some sinister "Silicon Valley elite" impugning that she's
the mastermind behind Cambridge Analytica becoming the shady organization.

It's really shady, grasping at rhetorical straws journalism.

"A firm that belonged to someone she knew about through her father" is so much
juicier and scandalous than "Palantir".

Strangely, I don't know Eric Schmidt and I do know about Palantir.

Yes, Schmidt can buy more justice than most of us, but in this case, the
primary issue is the high cost of justice, not that some people are rich and
can afford it.

The idea that rich can bully anyone with lawyers is seductive, but this is The
Guardian, a newspaper with its own army of lawyers. Newspaper that published
Snowden files and many other controversial things.

If there was no merit to the complaint, the Guardian would tell Schmidt to sod
off.

After reading the article it seems to me that the "journalist" threw a
completely innocent person under the bus, tried to implicate her into an
international scandal only because she happened to be a daughter of a famous
person.

It's appalling what Guardian did implicating her in this scandal. And sad
because it was otherwise well researched.

~~~
vezycash
>The idea that rich can bully anyone with lawyers is seductive, but this is
The Guardian, a newspaper with its own army of lawyers.

Don't forget how Billionaire Peter Thiel sued gawker to bankrupcy.

~~~
whycombagator
Sure, but directly though - unless there are other events I'm unaware of.

I thought Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan in his sex tape lawsuit against Gawker
(IIRC HH didn't have much money after his divorce)

~~~
vezycash
According to what I remember, Thiel already had an axe to grind with gawker.
Hogan's case simply presented the perfect opportunity to exact his revenge.

------
thinkingemote
You can view the diff of the scrubbing via NewSniffer:
[https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1375881/diff/7/8](https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1375881/diff/7/8)

~~~
probably_wrong
Wow, that looks worse than I thought.

In the newest version, it reads:

> _In some ways, an intern showing up and referring to Palantir is just
> another weird detail in the weirdest story I have ever researched._

while the original version read:

> _In some ways, Eric Schmidt’s daughter showing up and referring to Palantir
> is just another weird detail in the weirdest story I have ever researched._

They didn't just edit her out - instead, they completely changed the meaning
of the text. By changing the point of those paragraphs from "here is how well-
connected people behaved in this scandal" to "isn't it quirky that powerful
people would listen to a random, unremarkable intern?" they have gone
completely against the whistleblower's point.

I can definitely understand why he's so angry about this.

~~~
nabla9
> Why would anyone want to intern with a psychological warfare firm, I ask
> him. And he looks at me like I am mad. “It was like working for MI6. Only
> it’s MI6 for hire. It was very posh, very English, run by an old Etonian and
> you got to do some really cool things. Fly all over the world. You were
> working with the president of Kenya or Ghana or wherever. It’s not like
> election campaigns in the west. You got to do all sorts of crazy shit.” Why
> would anyone want to intern with a psychological warfare firm, I ask him.
> And he looks at me like I am mad. “It was like working for MI6. Only it’s
> MI6 for hire. It was very posh, very English, run by an old Etonian and you
> got to do some really cool things. Fly all over the world. You were working
> with the president of Kenya or Ghana or wherever. It’s not like election
> campaigns in the west. You got to do all sorts of crazy shit.”

>On that day in January 2013, Sophie met up with SCL’s chief executive,
Alexander Nix, and gave him the germ of an idea. “She said, ‘You really need
to get into data.’ She really drummed it home to Alexander. And she mentioned
to him a firm that belonged to someone she knew about through her father.”

------
jhncls
The same Eric Schmidt once famously stated "If you have something that you
don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place"
[0]. Apparently, it depends.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#In_fa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#In_favor_of_the_argument)

~~~
ryanlol
It seems like he used the word “maybe” there.

------
PeterStuer
When Schmidt says 'privacy is dead', he means _your_ privacy.

~~~
dredmorbius
NB, that specific quote tends not to be associated with Schmidt. His comment
on the matter was "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know,
maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place".

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/schmidt_on_privacy/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/schmidt_on_privacy/)

Larry Ellison (CEO, Oracle) said "Privacy is dead".

[https://securitycurrent.com/privacy-is-dead-long-live-
privac...](https://securitycurrent.com/privacy-is-dead-long-live-privacy/)

Scott McNeally (CEO, Sun) said "You have zero privacy anyway, get over it."

[https://www.wired.com/1999/01/sun-on-privacy-get-over-
it/](https://www.wired.com/1999/01/sun-on-privacy-get-over-it/)

Though, looking back on it, Big Tech really seems to have had it in for
privacy for a long time.

------
bArray
The Guardian haven't been trustworthy for a while now.

It seems as though only recently did they start turning a profit [1] and I
suspect some of this is achieved by giving up some of their original
journalistic integrity.

[1] [https://www.opednews.com/articles/Guardian-turns-a-profit-
fo...](https://www.opednews.com/articles/Guardian-turns-a-profit-fo-by-
Stephen-Fox-Advocacy-Journalism_Citizen-Journalism_First-Amendment_First-
Amendment-Press-190502-282.html)

~~~
bogle
And you'd almost certainly be wrong. The subscribers to The Guardian,
worldwide, value its quality reporting where most other newspapers are
beholden to the interests of their owners.

~~~
mft_
Their trust structure is probably a positive vs. influential owners (as you
say) but that doesn't automatically mean that The Grauniad always offers
"quality reporting".

They still push a distinct political angle (aka bias) in everything they
write, and aren't above lower-quality clickbait.

~~~
oska
The Scott Trust got wound up in 2008 and its assets transferred to a new
limited company named "The Scott Trust Limited" (disingenuous name). [1]

[1] [https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-owning-scott-
trust-t...](https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-owning-scott-trust-to-
fold-after-72-years/)

~~~
bogle
Seriously, you need to learn a little about company formations, especially
Articles and Memorandum.

------
Tomte
> It's extraordinary that the daughter of Eric Schmidt—the man who says that
> privacy is dead—would be using U.K. privacy laws to get herself taken out of
> the piece

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sippenhaft](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sippenhaft)

~~~
nabla9
It's was Schmidt's lawyers, money and his influence.

Sippenhaft is leagal term and there is no legal case against Schmidt or his
daughter.

Outside the law, family relations and connections are relevant. It's the job
of journalists to expose those connections.

~~~
kjksf
So you think that it was fair that she was "exposed" in that piece?

What exactly was her role in and relevance to Cambridge Analytica scandal?

According to the article, she was an intern at SCL Election before 2013, in
January 2013 she met with CEO and, the article absurdly claims that "she gave
him the germ of an idea" by mentioning data and Palantir.

Oh, and she works at Uber now, which we all know is bad. Somehow.

It's absurd to suggest that what a former intern, even named Schmid, said in
2013 had any impact on what happened later.

SLC Group was founded in 1990, Palantir in 2003.

By 2013, SLC Group was involved in political lobbying and manipulation for
over 20 years.

Cambridge Analytica was created in 2012, a year before the 2013 meeting.

The idea that CEO Cambridge Analytics didn't know about Palantir in 2013 or
needed to be educated by a former intern about the importance of data is just
laughable.

As far as I can tell the journalist opportunistically juiced up the story by
twisting facts to fit a narrative of some sinister SV dominance and throwing a
random person under the bus by trying to tie her to an international scandal.

~~~
luckylion
Tbh, "intern" doesn't need to mean that she copies documents and hangs around
shadowing people. I agree that she most likely didn't tell them anything new
when she recommended Palantir, it sounds more like what Trump is doing having
his daughter work with others on his behalf. When it's about business with
people you trust, immediate family is often the obvious choice.

It's not ruled out, but it's not that likely that any random person would get
great offers. Being the child of one of the most powerful men of the industry
helps, so of course there's the family is involved. Playing the "oh yeah, but
the relation is totally accidental, it had nothing to do with any decisions of
businesses"-card sounds a bit strange.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
That "whistleblower" has no credibility left:

>> In 2014, Wylie co-founded Eunoia Technologies[9][23] along with former
SCL/Cambridge Analytica senior staff Brent Clickard, Mark Gettleson and Tadas
Jucikas.[23] In describing his ambitions for developing Eunoia, Wylie stated,
"I want to build the NSA’s wet dream".[23] Eunoia Technologies has been
criticized for the similar psychographic profiling tactics used by Cambridge
Analytica,[9][23] using the same dataset shared by Alexander
Kogan.[9][23][24][25]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wylie#Eunoia_Techn...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wylie#Eunoia_Technologies,_2014-17)

So he basically accused Cambridge Analytica of doing what he then went on to
do with his own firm. It's great that we learned all that shady business going
on, but it's clear that Wylie's motives were not altruistic.

~~~
untog
There are a lot of attempts to dismiss whistleblowers by attacking their
"credibility" lately.

There is only one criteria to assess: is their report true? You assess this by
investigating what they claim in their report. So far, what he's said has been
entirely backed up by facts. His reason for blowing the whistle in the first
place is irrelevant.

------
rjsw
The Guardian was pushing the narrative that Dix and the rest of the Cambridge
Analytica management were evil geniuses.

The alternative is that the management didn't really understand technology and
were often overselling what was possible to potential clients. A story that
Sophie Schmidt had helped them understand stuff reinforces this alternative
line.

------
mark_l_watson
I am surprised by the many comments here so critical of the Guardian. I live
in the USA, and I find it frustrating trying to find news sources that don’t
seem biased with strong agendas.

I pay a monthly donation to the Guardian because I find them better than most
other news sources. I also like NPR Nightly News (they give fair time to both
sides in contentious issues) and sometimes the BBC.

------
gypsy_boots
This article is kind of all over the place, at first blaming the Guardian but
then backing down a bit to say that they had limited resources to fight what
would be an expensive legal battle, which is understandable.

> He said he was put in touch with Gavin Millar, a well-known London lawyer
> who had worked on the Edward Snowden case. Wylie said the lawyer suggested
> he give the story to a U.S. newspaper because the First Amendment provided a
> stronger defense against accusations of libel..."it was actually The
> Guardian's Katharine Viner who reached out to Dean Baquet at the New York
> Times to help set up the partnership." Wylie’s revelations were published
> jointly by The Guardian and The New York Times

This should be the main takeaway from all of this. They were making a
calculated choice based on the resources they had available. The Guardian
should still be seen as a trustworthy publication

------
curiousgal
Surprised people are still listening to Christopher Wylie, the "whistleblower"
who founded a company as shady as Cambridge Analytica and only blew the cover
after being sued by them for soliciting their clients and offering the same
services.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wylie](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wylie)

------
catacombs
> When one of the world’s most respected newspapers went up against former
> Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his daughter and backed down, Wylie decided to
> go to The New York Times.

Let's keep in mind the NYT was a Pulitzer finalist for its coverage of the
scandal and other privacy-related projects that stemmed from it.

------
panpanna
And they said Gavin Belson was just a fictional character...

~~~
jamisteven
L M A O - Yea, all of the SV show is loosely based on actual events.

------
AltmousGadfly
Oh who would have thought it. 2 years after this story was published he comes
out this this story. Could it be at all related to the fact he has a book
coming out 8th Oct based on the subject. I dont know why we fall for this
media stories that just pump out because some guy the world has moved on from
2 years ago is trying to peddle a new book.

The guy works for H&M fashion in their retail division doing pretty much the
same work he did for Cambridge Analytica. He was at the bylinefestival
recently at which Wylie insisted on a chauffeur back and forth to his flat in
London.

Demands no doubt agreed with his hollywood agent William Morris.

If you give people enough money they turn into the people that once hated and
called out as a whistleblower.

~~~
cookie_monsta
He works for H&M manipulating elections? Aren't they a clothes label?

Is requesting a driver some sort of moral failing now?

Do you think that all people who publish books should not have agents, or is
it something about William Morris in particular?

The diff linked in another post here shows pretty clearly that the article was
changed, and everybody who wants to sell a book wants publicity (even
whistleblowers). I don't understand where your hostility is coming from.

------
buboard
I m more concerned about the nepotism contained in the piece rather than the
expose, which acts as a good promotion for his book

