First we used focus groups and qualitative observation to unpack the perceptions of a given population and learn what people cared about — term limits, the deep state, draining the swamp, guns, and the concept of walls to keep out immigrants were all explored in 2014, years before the Trump campaign.
We then came up with hypotheses for how to sway opinions. CA tested these hypotheses with target segments in online panels or experiments to see whether they performed as the team expected, based on the data. We also pulled Facebook profiles, looking for patterns in order to build a neural-network algorithm that would help us make predictions.
Cambridge Analytica would target those who were more prone to impulsive anger or conspiratorial thinking than average citizens, introducing narratives via Facebook groups, ads, or articles that the firm knew from internal testing were likely to inflame the very narrow segments of people with these traits. CA wanted to provoke people, to get them to engage.
