Christopher Wylie

“So you know, when you think about all of the things that you put online - so whether it's, you know, your - what TV shows you like or, you know, what movies you watch or what you listen to, these are all little discrete clues about sort of who you are as a person.”

“Even though Cambridge Analytica has dissolved, the capabilities are still there, the platforms are still there, the people are still there. What happens when China becomes the next Cambridge Analytica? Like anything, the second, third, fourth time you do something, you start to refine and perfect it.”

“I've always been really interested in fashion, culture and visual arts in general: when I was growing up my parents half-expected me to go to art school, but I ended up working in Parliament, and then working in tech and data.”

“Amazon could also be the next Vogue, the next designer, the next WGSN.”

“My real concern is what happens if China becomes the next Cambridge Analytica, what happens if North Korea becomes the next Cambridge Analytica?”

“In politics, the money man is usually the dumbest person in the room.”

“It's unfortunate that Facebook, as soon as I come and speak out, they ban me from their platforms.”

“Amazon has a good track record for blowing up industries, and fashion needs to look at what has happened to music, publishing and media.”

“Speaking out against social media giants like Facebook is intimidating, particularly when I come forward as a whistleblower.”

“For a long time I think journalists and society at large really did drink that Kool-Aid. They bought the message that the tech industry is good and they can do no wrong.”

“Cambridge Analytica sought to identify mental vulnerabilities in voters and worked to exploit them by targeting information designed to activate some of the worst characteristics in people, such as neuroticism, paranoia and racial biases.”

“Fashion brands are really useful in producing algorithms to find out how people think and how they feel.”

“You know Facebook has this sort of bizarre culture of like really shunning people who raise legitimate concerns about how, you know, their company is operating.”

“With access to enough Facebook data, it would finally be possible to take the first stab at simulating society 'in silico.' The implications were astonishing: You could, in theory simulate a future society to create problems like ethnic tension or wealth disparity and watch how they play out.”

“What we're now seeing is that big tech is just like any other industry. When push comes to shove, when it affects profit, they make decisions just like an oil or tobacco company would.”

“The power of data is being able to be much more efficient with who you target and who you talk to and what you talk to them about. If you can gain that sort of very surgical efficiency, particularly in elections where you just need one more vote in order to win an election, yeah, absolutely, it can play a very significant role.”

“I am accepting my share of responsibility in what happens with Cambridge Analytica. I think that Facebook should also accept some share of responsibility as to what happened.”

“It's important that people see that you can be a whistleblower and you can be different.”

“What's different with Cambridge Analytica and more broadly with social media is that you are the target. People want to harvest your information in as granular a way as possible in order to, like, create a picture, a complete picture of who you are, ultimately to either sell you things or make you believe things.”

“It is extremely uncomfortable to consider that our democracy may have been corrupted. That potential crimes may have taken place - some of them on Facebook's servers - that seem to be beyond the reach of law.”