For the first time, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower tells the inside story of the data mining and psychological manipulation behind the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum, connecting Facebook, WikiLeaks, Russian intelligence, and international hackers. “Mindf*ck demonstrates how digital influence operations, when they converged with the nasty business of politics, managed to hollow out democracies.”—The Washington Post Mindf*ck goes deep inside Cambridge Analytica’s “American operations,” which were driven by Steve Bannon’s vision to remake America and fueled by mysterious billionaire Robert Mercer’s money, as it weaponized and wielded the massive store of data it had harvested on individuals—in excess of 87 million—to disunite the United States and set Americans against each other. Bannon had long sensed that deep within America’s soul lurked an explosive tension. Cambridge Analytica had the data to prove it, and in 2016 Bannon had a presidential campaign to use as his proving ground. Christopher Wylie might have seemed an unlikely figure to be at the center of such an operation. Canadian and liberal in his politics, he was only twenty-four when he got a job with a London firm that worked with the U.K. Ministry of Defense and was charged putatively with helping to build a team of data scientists to create new tools to identify and combat radical extremism online. In short order, those same military tools were turned to political purposes, and Cambridge Analytica was born. Wylie’s decision to become a whistleblower prompted the largest data-crime investigation in history. His story is both exposé and dire warning about a sudden problem born of very new and powerful capabilities. It has not only laid bare the profound vulnerabilities—and profound carelessness—in the enormous companies that drive the attention economy, it has also exposed the profound vulnerabilities of democracy itself. What happened in 2016 was just a trial run. Ruthless actors are coming for your data, and they want to control what you think.

From whistleblower Christopher Wylie, the definitive story of the Brexit coup, the making of Bannon's America, and an ongoing crime against democracy.

An “important and gripping” memoir by the woman who blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica and the data industry’s unethical practices (The Washington Post). When Brittany Kaiser joined Cambridge Analytica—the UK-based political consulting firm funded by conservative billionaire and Donald Trump patron Robert Mercer—she was an idealistic young professional, a veteran of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign with degrees in human rights law and international relations. Her goal was to utilize data for humanitarian purposes, most notably to prevent genocide and human rights abuses. But her experience inside Cambridge Analytica opened her eyes to the tremendous risks this unregulated industry poses to privacy and democracy. In this explosive memoir, she reveals the disturbing truth about the multi-billion-dollar data industry, revealing how companies are getting richer using our personal information and exposing how Cambridge Analytica exploited weaknesses in privacy laws to help elect Donald Trump in 2016. Targeted is Kaiser’s eyewitness chronicle of the dramatic and disturbing story of the rise and fall of Cambridge Analytica. She reveals how Facebook’s lax policies and lack of sufficient national laws allowed voters to be manipulated in both Britain and the US, where personal data was weaponized to spread fake news and racist messaging during the Brexit vote and the 2016 election. In the aftermath, as she became aware of the horrifying reality of what Cambridge Analytica had done, Kaiser made the difficult choice to expose the truth. Risking her career, relationships, and personal safety, she told authorities about the industry’s unethical practices, eventually testifying before Parliament about the company’s Brexit efforts and helping Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, alongside at least ten other international investigations. Packed with never-before-publicly-told stories, Targeted goes inside the secretive meetings with Trump campaign personnel—and makes the case that legal oversight of the data industry is not only justifiable but essential to ensuring the long-term safety of our democracy. “Captivating and revelatory.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) Includes photographs

Through a wide range of examples, from literature to social media, the book explores how meaning and communication interact.

In Manhood Impossible, Scott Melzer argues that boys’ and men’s bodies and breadwinner status are the two primary sites for their expression of control. Controlling selves and others, and resisting being dominated and controlled is most connected to men’s bodies and work. However, no man can live up to these culturally ascendant ideals of manhood. The strategies men use to manage unmet expectations often prove toxic, not only for men themselves, but also for other men, women, and society. Melzer strategically explores the lives of four groups of adult men struggling with contemporary body and breadwinner ideals. These case studies uncover men’s struggles to achieve and maintain manhood, and redefine what it means to be a man.

This is the entire series put into one book. Paperback edition.They took too much.Left too little.I had nothing to lose...until him.*****************~Lana~I didn't expect him.I didn't want to fall in love.But I can't let him go.Logan Bennett makes the world a safer place.He's brilliant.He's a hero.He locks away the sick and depraved.But while he's saving lives, I'm taking them. Collecting the debts that are owed to me.Ten years ago, they took from me. They left me for dead.They should have made sure I stayed dead.Now I'm taking from them.One name at a time.I've trained for too long.I've been patient.I can't stop now.Revenge is best served cold...They never see me coming, until I paint their walls red.Logan doesn't know how they hurt me. He doesn't know about the screams they ignored. He doesn't know how twisted that town really is.He just knows people are dying.He doesn't know he's in love with their killer.No one suspects a dead girl.And Logan doesn't suspect the girl in his bed.They're looking for a monster.Not a girl who loves red.Not a girl in love.I'm a faceless nightmare.At least until I tell them the story they've pretended never happened.But in the end, will Logan choose them? Or will we watch them burn together?**Graphic**Adult language**Some triggers could be too much for the easily disturbed reader**Sexual content**Fucked up moral compass; read at your own risk.

The basis for the new HBO Max documentary, Persona *A New York Times Critics' Best Book of 2018* *An Economist Best Book of 2018* *A Spectator Best Book of 2018* *A Mental Floss Best Book of 2018* An unprecedented history of the personality test conceived a century ago by a mother and her daughter--fiction writers with no formal training in psychology--and how it insinuated itself into our boardrooms, classrooms, and beyond The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It is used regularly by Fortune 500 companies, universities, hospitals, churches, and the military. Its language of personality types--extraversion and introversion, sensing and intuiting, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving--has inspired television shows, online dating platforms, and Buzzfeed quizzes. Yet despite the test's widespread adoption, experts in the field of psychometric testing, a $2 billion industry, have struggled to validate its results--no less account for its success. How did Myers-Briggs, a homegrown multiple choice questionnaire, infiltrate our workplaces, our relationships, our Internet, our lives? First conceived in the 1920s by the mother-daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, a pair of devoted homemakers, novelists, and amateur psychoanalysts, Myers-Briggs was designed to bring the gospel of Carl Jung to the masses. But it would take on a life entirely its own, reaching from the smoke-filled boardrooms of mid-century New York to Berkeley, California, where it was administered to some of the twentieth century's greatest creative minds. It would travel across the world to London, Zurich, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Tokyo, until it could be found just as easily in elementary schools, nunneries, and wellness retreats as in shadowy political consultancies and on social networks. Drawing from original reporting and never-before-published documents, The Personality Brokers takes a critical look at the personality indicator that became a cultural icon. Along the way it examines nothing less than the definition of the self--our attempts to grasp, categorize, and quantify our personalities. Surprising and absorbing, the book, like the test at its heart, considers the timeless question: What makes you, you?

Argues that human freedom is threatened by systems of intelligent persuasion developed by tech giants who compete for our time and attention. This title is also available as Open Access.

The executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal chronicles the astonishing rise, climax, and decline of the conservative movement, from the election of Ronald Reagan to the Republican Party's takeover by Donald Trump—with a new introduction covering the 2020 election and the future of the GOP “Ably captures the most consequential American political developments in half a century.” —Peggy Noonan In 1980, President-Elect Ronald Reagan ushered in conservatism as the most powerful political force in America. For four decades, New Deal liberalism had been the country’s dominant motif, creating such popular programs as Social Security and Medicare, but it had become creaky in the face of soaring inflation, high unemployment, and a growing sense that the United States was no longer the dominant force on the world stage. Reagan's efforts to reshape the government with tax cuts, deregulation, increased military spending, and a more conservative social policy faltered at first. But the economy roared back, and the Reagan revolution was on. In We Should Have Seen It Coming, veteran journalist Gerald F. Seib shows how this conservative movement came to dominate national politics, then began to evolve into the populist movement that Donald Trump rode to power. Conservative institutions including the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association, Americans for Tax Reform, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News gave the conservative movement a support system, paving the way for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America and George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism. But we also see multiple warning signs, many overlooked or misread, that a populist revolution was brewing. Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party—all were precursors of the Trump takeover. With behind-the-scenes anecdotes, Seib explains how Trump capitalized on that populist movement to victory in 2016, then began breaking from conservative orthodoxy once in office. He shows how Trump altered Republican relations with the business world, shattered conservative precepts on trade and immigration and challenged America’s long-standing alliances. This scintillating work of journalism brings new insight to the most important political story of our time.

A former FBI Special Agent and leading cyber-security expert offers a devastating and essential look at the misinformation campaigns, fake news, and electronic espionage operations that have become the cutting edge of modern warfare—and how we can protect ourselves and our country against them. Clint Watts electrified the nation when he testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. In Messing with the Enemy, the cyber and homeland security expert introduces us to a frightening world in which terrorists and cyber criminals don’t hack your computer, they hack your mind. Watts reveals how these malefactors use your information and that of your friends and family to work for them through social media, which they use to map your social networks, scour your world affiliations, and master your fears and preferences. Thanks to the schemes engineered by social media manipulators using you and your information, business executives have coughed up millions in fraudulent wire transfers, seemingly good kids have joined the Islamic State, and staunch anti-communist Reagan Republicans have cheered the Russian government’s hacking of a Democratic presidential candidate’s e-mails. Watts knows how they do it because he’s mirrored their methods to understand their intentions, combat their actions, and coopt their efforts. Watts examines a particular social media platform—from Twitter to internet Forums to Facebook to LinkedIn—and a specific bad actor—from al Qaeda to the Islamic State to the Russian and Syrian governments—to illuminate exactly how social media tracking is used for nefarious purposes. He explains how he’s learned, through his successes and his failures, to engage with hackers, terrorists, and even the Russians—and how these interactions have generated methods of fighting back. Shocking, funny, and eye-opening, Messing with the Enemy is a deeply urgent guide for living safe and smart in a super-connected world.