Film Of The Month: The Great Hack, An In-Depth Look At The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Scandal
PUBLISHED August 26th, 2019 06:30 am | UPDATED June 3rd, 2020 12:15 am
Netflix’s documentaries are a great way to cut yourself off from the world for a few hours with some chips and ice cream without feeling guilty at the end. Because most of the time, you’ll be learning something new. So when the trailer for The Great Hack started playing the second I loaded up Netflix, I knew I had to dedicate an afternoon free from distractions for this. And I have to say, this film really shed some light on the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica fiasco all over the news back in 2018.
The Great Hack is a no-holds-barred take on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and data privacy as a whole. It’s a thought-provoking film that will really make you question your interaction with social media and how it’s being used to influence decisions and trigger emotions.
The documentary begins with a man named David Carroll, an associate professor who figured out that Facebook had been working with Cambridge Analytica to harvest the personal data of almost all of its users, and it documents his quest in recovering his own from the firm. Interjected with interviews and first-hand accounts from the people involved in the scandal, such as Cambridge Analytica’s former VP Steve Bannon, business development director Brittany Kaiser, and investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr. It starts off a little slow, and I wouldn’t want to divulge too much, but there are mentions of the 2016 US Presidential Elections and Brexit peppered into the film that really lend a new perspective and beg further questions to the decision-making and outcomes.
I was taken aback when the harvesting and manipulation of personal data is compared to psyops – for the uninformed, psyops is a branch of the military that does psychological warfare. Communication and propaganda are powerful tools that can help win wars without a single bullet and elect the “right” people into power. This “weaponized” data is unethical, yet Cambridge Analytica is proud of being one of the most successful companies to leverage on this for their clients, which include Trump’s campaign and the Leave.EU campaign. Psyops feeds the proverbial ammunition to the masses and the ensuing chaos and divide among the common people only benefit those in power.
Catch The Great Hack on Netflix.
