The Great Hack

This documentary is a fascinating account of The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

In early 2018, Cambridge Analytica became a household name. The company had exploited the personal data of millions of Facebook users, without their knowledge or consent, and used it for political propaganda.

At a running time of almost two hours, The Great Hack is overlong, but it remains a largely engrossing watch.

The story of the notorious and now defunct Cambridge Analytica is told through the eyes of those who uncovered the scandal, and some of its former employees. One of the film's best features is the way in which it renders invisible data exploitation visible, by giving shape and colour to the 2.5 quintillion data points we produce every day. Understanding how this data is collected, shared and (mis)used is difficult for most of us to comprehend, but the Great Hack does a good job of visualising it.

The Great Hack spends a lot of time - perhaps too much time - with Brittany Kaiser, the former business development director for Cambridge Analytica. She spoke out days after the Guardian reported her alleged involvement in a smear campaign in the Nigerian 2015 election, but this context of Kaiser's decision to go public, and other key details about her complicated story are not covered. She is actually a far more ambiguous character than she appears to be in the documentary.

Through Kaiser, and previously unreleased files and recordings, The Great Hack gets into details of how Cambridge Analytica operated. In one of the film's most convincing scenes, we learn how SCL Elections, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, engineered a grassroots youth movement in Trinidad and Tobago to "increase apathy" so that young Afro-Caribbeans would not vote. This highlights a theme that often got lost in the midst of a scandal that focussed primarily on the company's involvement in the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum - which is that countries with fewer laws and protections often serve as testing grounds for the worst practices by companies.

In one scene Kaiser discusses a PowerPoint slide that shows all the different data sources the company has used. Next to Facebook, we see the logo of data broker Acxiom. It is in moments like these, that the Great Hack hints at, but fails to explain exactly how the story of a single company links to a broader narrative about a systemic and looming threat - and the importance of enforceable data rights in addressing this challenge.

Read the critical reviews here and ask yourself to what use we have put the hyper powerful computing power ,infinite memory storage and vast amounts of OUR DATA controlled by , literally, a handful of people. Granted it's mostly for commerce, selling us stuff, until it becomes selling our data to people or entities who clearly don't have our best interests in mind or at heart. And this handful of people cares not one wit to whom they are selling our data or what their ultimate aims might be. ??? leftist propaganda??? One need only look at the decidedly anti democratic trends sweeping the globe to understand how powerful the manipulation of people through the use of the data they surrender, either willing or not is. This film attempts to illuminate the dangers of weaponizing our data and using it against us to undermine democracy and how vulnerable we are to that sort of manipulation. There are real world consequences , Myanmar for one and those are bloody consequences. Propaganda is certainly the familiar domain of the fascists who currently hold sway. across the globe. Despite what the reviews on offer here proclaim this film is hardly propaganda , far from it.

After seeing this I'm thinking that I might want to close my Facebook account. We live in a crazy world these days where people will do just about anything to survive wth using social media for data mining and anything. All part of the bigger design for us to see ourselves more clearly I'm starting to think and perhaps good for a reorganization of how we do things but it will probably get more crazier before it gets saner. I suggest rather than making an opinion to watch this title based on the reviews you see on imdb and Rotten Tomatoes, go watch it for yourself and come up with your own opinions. . .we now know that many reviews are put out by bots and paid writers so it's hard to get what's real these days. The only way is for one to start thinking for themselves rather than just believing what others say or social media says. You'll find all the answers inside.

Ok so overall my opinion of this documentary if it can be called that went from very good in the first 30-40 minutes and downhill beyond that point resulting in 6 stars from me. Maybe 5.

Why? The main guy (who's name I've forgotten because that's how immaterial he becomes to the narrative as times passes) wants to know what's happened to his data, how its being used etc. Basically the only guy in this entire Doc that comes across as having a genuine motive.

The rest of the Doc is basically a Brittany Kaiser/Kim Kardashian follow around blow hard piece. The more you watch Brittany Kaiser feign shock or any of the other "I'm a real human woman" emotions she displays on screen the more irritating this Doc becomes and the more you come to the conclusion she's vapid and incredibly vainglorious.

Its originally presented as her "Stepping Forward" because she realises FB/CA/What she did was just evil and needed to be stopped. As time passes watching the Doc its blindingly obvious it was nothing of the sort.

She was a willing participant who loved the spotlight, money and access she had. As soon as that house of cards looked shaky she bailed out and found her next "cause" that would pay her money. This Netflix Doc is a very very poor attempt at real analysis of this subject and Brittany Kaiser comes across as somebody clearly obsessed with her own ego.

I challenge anybody to watch this Doc and come away with an alternative impression about her. She's opportunistic and absolutely LOVES the cameras on her and this Doc and she's almost borderline name dropping names or subjects every time she gets the chance to show how important "she once was".

Vainglorious and irritating but good portions of the Doc had quality but in no way should she have been its focus. She's just as guilty and vapid as the rest of them and it shows.

...but most won't admit. Why? Simply because we're addicted to it. Who could shut down fb (or any other social network) account, or TV, after watching this documentary (or "Snowden", or even 1971's "Network")? 1? 2? None? Whoever believes technology is here for the good of the society, they're just deep trapped into that illusion. Technology developed for military purposes. That's the "A". Business and commerce is the "B". What is the "C"? "Control". Who's behind that? Freaks of the highest elite. What they want? Everything. Our mind, souls, and all the resources and wealth this planet can offer. What can we do? Well, not much. The majority is blind, and they're "happy" in their blindness. One-eyed, they are few, and usually suffer from depression (often because they can't stand all that "beep" going on around 'em). Two-eyed, i've never met. So i guess there's no way out for our deeply hypnotised and failed species, except maybe from a "hard reset"...