The Great Hack

While there's no question that companies like Cambridge Analytica are a huge problem, and that the work they do is unethical, there's still something to be said about this movie. Watching this movie, you would think that Cambridge Analytica is the sole reason for why Trump or Brexit got the most votes, and that if such companies were to be banned, everything would be solved and there would be no authoritarianism ever again. The unfortunate fact and the true problem is that Trump and Brexit would still have huge amount of support even without Cambridge Analytica, and the causes of that are much deeper and something that this movie doesn't even touch on.

Seeing as we have an election approaching this fall, I figured it'd be good to refresh myself on the manipulation of our last election and the Brexit campaign. I liked the first half of this documentary, but the second half was not quite as engaging (likely due to the personality of Brittany Kaiser and a lack of breadth of topic coverage). With the doc starting off talking about some of the logistics in play by Cambridge Analytica's approach to manipulation and posing some intriguing philosophical questions, it peters out towards the end and shies away from further depth into CA and breadth of the tech world in general (and implications of how this type of manipulation is an everyday practice nowadays). For someone who doesn't know much about this at all, it's a good doc, but if you're looking for something to sink your teeth into, it's not going to satisfy that hunger.