Democracy Under Threat

Christopher Wylie

Christopher Wylie speaking at Parliamentary select committee

Democracy is under threat like never before. Digital warfare seems to be incredibly effective in changing how people think, feel and vote. There is growing evidence that many elections have been influenced in very negative and socially divisive ways, from the election of Donald Trump to the UK Brexit referendum.

In December I wrote a blog about why we should ‘Exit from Brexit’. Since then the revelations have shown a very frightening picture of voter manipulation, illegal data harvesting and campaign spending greatly exceeding legal limits. In that blog I highlighted the excellent investigative journalism of Carole Cadwalladr and others. In Saturday’s Guardian she posts the latest update on this whole sordid mess. The embedded videos of her interviews with Christopher Wylie and Shahmir Sanni are particularly powerful. Their revelations about Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ are dynamite. The UK has much to do to restore its reputation as a reasonably functioning and law governed democracy.

Democracy has always needed defending from those out to destroy it. Lives are at stake in this battle. Every year dozens of investigative journalists are murdered as they investigate links between organised crime and corrupt politicians. Wikipedia lists 71 journalists killed during 2017. Propaganda has long been used to whip up hatred, and sometimes the effects take years to become apparent. The Nazi propaganda in the 1920’s and 30’s directly led to the eventual death of scores of millions of people by 1945. Kenya, like much of Africa, has a long history of inter tribal tensions. It appears Cambridge Analytica interfered in the last election in Kenya, in very socially damaging ways. It may be years before the full impact of this becomes apparent.

For those of us who care about democracy we will have to redouble our commitment to holding truth to power, through excellent investigative journalism and the vigorous upholding of the rule of law. If we fail to do this now, the future consequences for our species could be fatal. We live in a world packed full of weapons of mass destruction and with an unfolding global scale ecological crisis: we need global peace and democracy if we want to have a hope of survival into the next millennium.

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