The Cambridge Analytica story is full of hot air. Everybody delights in talking about how scary Facebook is, and lots of people believe the Donald Trump and Brexit campaigns somehow hoodwinked whole electorates — because, well, how else could they have won? We hear about creepy and sophisticated–sounding techniques such as ‘micro-targeting’ and ‘psychographics’. But there is a far bigger story, which goes beyond the antics of Cambridge Analytica or its parent company, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL Group), and other such businesses. It’s about how organisations from the developed world exploit small countries to advance dubious interests and make masses of money.
Take passport-selling. It may sound illicit, but in fact ‘citizenship-by-investment’ is a lawful global industry worth about $2 billion. Advanced countries do it too, in various ways: Britain offers ‘Tier 1’ residency visas in exchange for £2 million, for instance, and residents in turn can apply for citizenship. Representatives from the industry often say that their trade is a legitimate resource for high-net-worth individuals, and who doesn’t love high-net-worth individuals? But such enterprises will always attract unsavoury characters: the sort of people in the market for a second, third or even fourth passport who aren’t always welcome everywhere.
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