The Great Hack: L'Affaire Cambridge Analytica

I believe a lot of people could not follow with the whole cambridge analytica case. Mostly because of how many articles were written about it and you had to read all of them to understand it completely. The documentary however contained all the information of all the articles into an entertaining, exciting documentary that only lasted 2 hours but felt like only 1.

Netflix's The Great Hack (2019) is a very timely documentary to remember how our personal data can be used in ways we do not understand and aiming to change our behaviour against our interests. The film dissects a critical look on how Brexit and the latest US Elections suffered from unethical use of data mining and psychographics. An urgent call for us to protect better our data and request with our consumption patterns that our rights are always defended by the tech giants

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.

Have a look at many of the reviewers who have given this film 1 star - many usernames with random collection of digits at the end - click on their review history and you'll see they've submitted a small handful of reviews, all either "liberal propaganda" accusations or extremely brief reviews of politically-neutral films just to create the impression of a real user account. I guess this film touched a nerve! Overall the film gave a solid account of the workings of Cambridge Analytica, but I do agree that it was a little uncritical of the morally repugnant Brittany Kaiser. The transformation of the internet from an excellent research tool into a propaganda machine where the most reliable content is locked behind firewalls is a sad inevitability of this world. Who knows what the answer is? Switch off your devices and go for a walk, I guess.

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.