Mindf*ck

Chapter 1

Genesis

With each step, my new shoes dig into my heels. I clutch a dark-blue binder, filled with documents organized by colored tabs. Awestruck by where I ve found myself, and apprehensive of where I m heading, I focus on the sounds of our footsteps. An aide reminds us to move quickly so we won t be seen. We walk past uniformed guards, into an atrium, and turn down a corridor. The aide pushes open a door and we rush down some stairs and into a hallway that looks exactly like the last one marble floors, high ceilings, wooden doors with the occasional American flag. There are seven of us, and our footsteps echo through the hall. We are close; then I m caught. A congressman spots me and waves hello. Back again already? A handful of journalists wanders out of a press conference. They clock my electric pink hair and know who I am.

Two cameramen run in front of me and start filming, walking backward as they do. A scrum forms, the questions start coming Mr. Wylie, a question from NBC! A question from CNN! Why are you here? and one of my lawyers reminds me to keep my mouth shut. The aide points me to an elevator, warning the journalists to keep their distance, and we pile in. The cameras keep snapping as the doors close.

I m jammed in the back of the elevator, surrounded by people in suits. We start to descend, dropping deep underground. Everyone stays quiet on the way down. My mind is swimming with all of the prep work I ve done with my lawyers what U.S. laws were broken and by whom, what rights I do and don t have as a non-citizen visiting America, how to calmly respond to accusations, what happens if I am arrested afterward. I have no idea what to expect. No one does.

We come to a stop and the elevator doors glide open. There s nothing down here except another door, with a large red sign that reads RESTRICTED AREA in white lettering. NO PUBLIC OR MEDIA ACCESS. We re three floors beneath the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C.

Beyond the

Christopher Wylie has been called the millennials first great whistleblower and a pink-haired, nose-ringed oracle sent from the future. He is known for his role in setting up and then taking down Cambridge Analytica. His revelations exposing the rampant misuse of data rocked Silicon Valley and led to some of the largest multinational investigations into data crime ever. Born in British Columbia, Canada, he studied law at the London School of Economics before moving into cultural data science and fashion trend forecasting. He lives in London, England.

Wylie covers plenty of ground, explaining in illuminating and often scary detail how Cambridge Analytica exploited the data to create Facebook pages that would needle neurotic, conspiratorial citizens, propagating an outraged solidarity. The New York Times

Mindf*ck is worth reading if you're interested in some of the bigger questions of the day: elections; data; Russia s involvement in all of this; Steve Bannon's power plays in global politics; the list of politicians who make an appearance at the Cambridge Analytica offices. . . . The book does serve as a reminder that it might be time to check in with yourself and your relationship with the internet. Wylie talks about invading America by purposefully activating the worst in people, from paranoia to racism. Especially in relation to a certain company that sees regulation of its industry as an existential threat, it s a nice time to really wonder sure, online feels good. But is it worth it? NPR

Mindf*ck demonstrates how digital influence operations, when they converged with the nasty business of politics, managed to hollow out democracies. . . . [Wylie s] personal story, woven into the book s narrative, illustrates the confusion of our current political era as well as the challenge to Wylie s fellow members of the social media generation as they seek identities real and imagined, physical and virtual. . . . He makes clear how important the virtual world is to personal identity for his generation and those that follow. The Washington Post