Christopher Wylie: the gay vegan who ‘made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’
Steve Bannon ‘loved the gays’, according to the man who says he developed a tool to harvest personal data on millions of Americans for the US election.
Christopher Wylie, a 28-year-old Canadian data analyst, claims to have developed a system with data firm Cambridge Analytica that harvested personal information from 50 or 60 million Americans.
The group developed an app, according to Wylie, that once it had permission to a person’s data could then access the data of every one of their Facebook friend’s data.
Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have staunchly denied the claims by Wylie, who worked for the company over several years.
In an interview with the Observer, the whistleblower describes himself as the “gay vegan who made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare mindf**k tool”.
Wylie, who studied at the London School of Economics and worked for the Liberal Democrats in Britain, now says he wants to make amends for creating the tool and is willing to testify before Congress.
The tool he headed up is said to have harvested vast amounts of personal data via Facebook, then created content online to sway their thinking on a specific issue.
Describing the process, Wylie says Steve Bannon, former head of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and White House Chief of Staff, believed gay people were the key to success.
(Getty)
Speaking of Rebekah Mercer, daughter of billionaire Cambridge Analytica backer Robert Mercer, Wylie said: “The gays. She loved the gays. So did Steve [Bannon].”
He added: “He saw us as early adopters. He figured, if you can get the gays on board, everyone else will follow. It’s why he was so into the whole Milo [Yiannopoulos] thing.”
The news runs contrary to other reports about Bannon, who is said to have secretly corresponded with representatives of an anti-LGBT hate group.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
According to Buzzfeed News, Bannon has secret links with figures inside the Family Research Council – which is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBT hate group.
Buzzfeed published extracts from emails that Bannon exchanged with FRC official Chris Gacek, who aids the group’s work fighting against LGBT rights and liberal values.
