The Great Hack (Documentary; 2019)
Netflix
They say there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything comes with strings attached. When something as luring as a freebie on the internet in exchange for some seemingly unimportant information and filling up questionnaires of sweet nothings, it is not just public service. There was a devious plan to collect little data about users. Sure, these were useful in devising digital businesses like Uber and Food Panda and developing algorithms into human behaviour. Unfortunately, this familiar and predicable human behaviour is the very thing that think-thank groups used to influence people's actions.
Cambridge Analytica (CA) and its parent company SCL (Strategic Communication Laboratories) are specially mentioned in this documentary to have been mining data from people with the help social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp.
CA and SCL employed psychologists help to improve advertising and influence public opinion. They further expanded its business into military warfare (by changing public views to win wars) and political interference. With the help of data collected from Facebook, they allegedly vilified Hillary Clinton, swang the votes of the voters in the swing states to ensure victory for Donald Trump. The modus operandi is to collect data from seeming simple, jocular and sometimes fun questionnaires. Through this, 'persuadable' - people who may be influenced are identified. They are then fed with newsfeeds and perhaps fake news to steer their thinking towards a set agenda.
CA is also accused of skewing the Brits to vote for Brexit and landing the politics in the current disarray.
The whole imbroglio surfaced when David Carroll, a US academician, sued CA in the UK to obtain his personal information and was denied. This opened the can of worms which finally made Mark Zuckerberg appear in front of the US Congressional hearing. Former employees of CA who were part and parcel of the whole kerfuffle, Chris Wylie and Brittany Kaiser, became whistleblowers. This documentary joins the dot between Jullian Assange's Wikileaks files, Russian connections to Trump's victory and the Mueller investigations. The Guardian journalist, Carole Cadwaaldr, explains the nitty-gritty details of the inquiries as seen in this film.
CA is said to have influenced elections in Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, Romania, Lithuania, Myanmar and even Malaysia. In Trinidad and Tobago, CA had deviously affected supporters of the incumbent to abstain from voting as though it was promoted as the cool thing to do. The underdogs naturally won.
In the history of mankind, Man has utilised many grossly inhumane ways to stay in power. Psychological studies, like the Stanford Prison Experiment, have repeatedly shown the innate evil that prevails in all of us. So, it is no surprise that something as close to the pillar democracy like having free and fair elections can be tampered with.
Netflix
They say there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything comes with strings attached. When something as luring as a freebie on the internet in exchange for some seemingly unimportant information and filling up questionnaires of sweet nothings, it is not just public service. There was a devious plan to collect little data about users. Sure, these were useful in devising digital businesses like Uber and Food Panda and developing algorithms into human behaviour. Unfortunately, this familiar and predicable human behaviour is the very thing that think-thank groups used to influence people's actions.Cambridge Analytica (CA) and its parent company SCL (Strategic Communication Laboratories) are specially mentioned in this documentary to have been mining data from people with the help social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp.
CA and SCL employed psychologists help to improve advertising and influence public opinion. They further expanded its business into military warfare (by changing public views to win wars) and political interference. With the help of data collected from Facebook, they allegedly vilified Hillary Clinton, swang the votes of the voters in the swing states to ensure victory for Donald Trump. The modus operandi is to collect data from seeming simple, jocular and sometimes fun questionnaires. Through this, 'persuadable' - people who may be influenced are identified. They are then fed with newsfeeds and perhaps fake news to steer their thinking towards a set agenda.
CA is also accused of skewing the Brits to vote for Brexit and landing the politics in the current disarray.
The whole imbroglio surfaced when David Carroll, a US academician, sued CA in the UK to obtain his personal information and was denied. This opened the can of worms which finally made Mark Zuckerberg appear in front of the US Congressional hearing. Former employees of CA who were part and parcel of the whole kerfuffle, Chris Wylie and Brittany Kaiser, became whistleblowers. This documentary joins the dot between Jullian Assange's Wikileaks files, Russian connections to Trump's victory and the Mueller investigations. The Guardian journalist, Carole Cadwaaldr, explains the nitty-gritty details of the inquiries as seen in this film.
CA is said to have influenced elections in Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, Romania, Lithuania, Myanmar and even Malaysia. In Trinidad and Tobago, CA had deviously affected supporters of the incumbent to abstain from voting as though it was promoted as the cool thing to do. The underdogs naturally won.
In the history of mankind, Man has utilised many grossly inhumane ways to stay in power. Psychological studies, like the Stanford Prison Experiment, have repeatedly shown the innate evil that prevails in all of us. So, it is no surprise that something as close to the pillar democracy like having free and fair elections can be tampered with.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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