Clare Brown helps Cambridge Analytica destroy Mukhriz Mahathir
“Is Clare not aware what Mukhriz told newsmen yesterday? According to the Kedah-born, Rizal used to be his press officer back when he (Mukhriz) served as the International Trade and Industry deputy minister. What this means, is that Rizal was right up there with Mukhriz somewhere around the time GE13 happened. Under the circumstances, is it not possible that SCL rewarded Rizal for introducing a customer whose billionaire father could afford to rig the entire Kedah election?”
THE THIRD FORCE
Does anyone know what the backfire effect is?
Well, let us suppose that you’re having an argument with your friend regarding, say, 1MDB, or even better, the ownership of the yacht that Indonesian authorities recently seized off the coast of Banoa Bay. You tell your friend – who happens to be a staunch Pakatan Harapan supporter – that the whole “Jho Low owns the yacht “ thingy was nothing but the doing of a global media collective sponsored by George Soros and Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Now, though your facts may be adequate, your suitcase of evidence may not. So you assume that your friend will see things your way should you present him (or her) with rational lines of reasoning. However, the minute you do that, you discover that all you did was embolden his (or her) false beliefs. It then strikes you that no matter how compelling your arguments are, all your friend does is pick the side that reinforces his (or her) views against your lines of reasoning.
And it works both ways – a truth seeker will only pick sides to stories that are substantiated with evidence, while a blind follower will pick whichever side that suits his (or her) prejudices. Last Sunday, Clare Rewcastle Brown emboldened the truth seeking group by accusing Barisan Nasional of manipulating the 2013 general election (GE13). According to her, the administration of Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak had obtained the services of Cambridge Analytica (CA), a New York based entity created as an offshoot to the United Kingdom (UK) based Strategic Communications Laboratory (CSL).
Clare’s ‘disclosure’ followed Saturday’s suspension of CA and the SCL Group by Facebook. On Saturday, the social media and social networking giant penalised the electoral research group following reports that CA used the stolen data to help rig the American election. Clare wasted little time linking Najib to the scandal by ‘disclosing’ that SCL was jointly led by one of the Prime Minister’s “most significant political advocates in the United Kingdom (UK),” Lord Marland.
Yes, Lord Marland, the guy who once chauffeured Najib around during the Prime Minister’s visit to the Vatican. Or, Lord Marland, the man who told Najib that he would be the longest living human in Malaysian history. I wouldn’t be surprised if Clare had thrown in Lord Vader himself, the guy who sold Najib the triple-pointed light saber to help the Prime Minister defeat Luke Skywalker.
