The Great Hack | Netflix Documentary

[Arthur]

Just finished watching this documentary, very eye-opening IMO. It's about the role of online platforms and social manipulation done in the politics of today.  Share your thoughts if you've watched it.

 

To me, this film certainly explains a lot. The sudden rise of patriotism and nationalism among teens in Ukraine, which sparked a violent revolution. The corrupt rIght wing leader in Brazil. How a not very popular guy becomes president of the United States. Why there is so much polarization in social media, and more. I distinctly remember in 2016 being bombarded by ads and commercials about how fraudulent and dishonest Hilary is, just to promote Trump. It's a sneaky way to nudge you in the direction they want you to go, without doing it openly. They make you feel that you've derived something for yourself, when if fact, they found out your weaknesses and made you follow the social trend. A good example they gave was the election in Trinidad. Maybe we no longer have meddling just in foreign elections. it's just a thought...

 

Short summary:

A company called Cambridge Analytica (CA) uses our private data to construct targeted propaganda for promoting their client's agenda. CA referred to itself as a "behaviour change company", and had worked for / is potentially funded by the CIA. They have access to personal data from all the major platform, the data included browsing history, comments, posts, photos, even personal DMs. These are the people who architected Brexit and many other political uprisals around the world. In 2016 they received a contract to support Trump's campaign for the presidency. Being a software company, CA employes data scientists who mine big data and create custom user profiles, which they further use to manipulate and sway your opinion. At the beginning of the campaign, CA had over 5000 data points from 30 million American voters, which is a gross violation of any privacy rights. They did not target every voter equally, their primary targets are what they call "Persuadables". These were the voters that their algorithm identified as being potentially deceived into voting for their client. In other words, thanks to the analysis of all the private data, they knew exactly what buttons to push. As shown in the documentary, their tools of propaganda were extremely successful. Ted Cruz went from being nobody to becoming the second Republican candidate. And of course, Trump won the election. In the end, thanks to brave whistleblowers, this stuff came to light, which caused that famous investigation into Facebook, and CA went under the bus. But this company was only a facade in the first place. I don't think this trickery will stop, and that might have issues here with the democratic process, privacy, deceit and manipulation. 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Arthur

[Aeris]

Sounds interesting on my watch list ( still watching 'the family' )

[Annoynymous]

It looks juicy

[MsNobody]

Just watched it! Amazing 

 @Leo Gura if you haven’t watched it, you could put it on the blog too.  It’s about our data and companies using it to manipulate us and elections around the world.

[abrakamowse]

Cool, I am going to watch it too... thanks for sharing!

 

[outlandish]

Checked this out. It's eye opening. It's a story I think everyone has heard at least in bits and pieces through media sound bites, but this documentary dives in deep, and it's not pretty at all.

Highly recommended, this documentary is vital. It's a problem that we're going to have to continually face, grapple, and address as a society. We need to shine lights on the monsters lurking in the shadows. Something to be highly conscious of as the USA (and other nations) enters it's election.

[ValiantSalvatore]

This is insane the same goes for data that is being shared via fitness apps etc. They can sell the fitness data to the insurance companies and adjust their health (programms for instance 200 euro for going to the gym 3 times and certifying that, not sure if this was a bonus before, yet they can target specific groups more intensly because of that. I like that they offer benefits, for instance yet it's similar to chatbots etc. they can facilitate customer service, yet at the sametime can be absued for demagoguery, in all sorts of forms. 

Nothing is really "decentralized" for instance like bitcoin as far as I know the companies keep the data to themselves, some protocol tools should be able to decipher it, I am actually doing that. But, yes I can see the data even with something simple, they have a lot of personal data etc, let alone by "hardware" alone and users don't have control as far as I know. This is even an open/potential business model, since a lot of young people want to protect their data. Yet, not enough people care yet. 

Not even considering the laws about this stuff. 

Edited September 5, 2019 by ValiantSalvatore

[Zigzag Idiot]

 

@ValiantSalvatore  I agree.

@Arthur  yes! Thank you!