Movie Review: The Great Hack

The Great Hack *** / *****

Directed by: Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim.

Written by: Karim Amer and Erin Barnett and Pedro Kos.

 

If you didn’t follow along with the Cambridge Analytica scandal when it broke, then the new Netflix documentary The Great Hack will give you a good recap of what happened – and why it was so bad. On a wider level, the film gives you a decent enough overview to how tech companies have turned us all into willing products – where we hand over our data to companies who then both profit from, and weaponized, all that data that we handed them. True, the Cambridge Analytica scandal was somewhat different – because they found a way to not just harvest the data you willing gave Facebook, but also the data of your Facebook friends. But for the most part, we hand our data willing to companies – we do these stupid survives on Facebook or other sites, thinking that we’re going to a fun result – what Game of Thrones character are you? Are you an introvert or an extrovert? But these quizzes all ask specific questions to learn more and more about us. In some ways, all this seems innocent enough – we get targeted ads based on our web searches, we get recommendations based on things we shop for or buy, etc. But what the Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed was just how a company can take this all, and turn it into a political weapon – a weapon that helps Donald Trump become President or helps Brexit become a reality, etc. If you have been following along with this story then, well, I’m not sure what The Great Hack really adds to the subject.

 

The film does do a good job of laying out what happened, and why it matters. The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr is our guide for much of this, and she in invaluable in laying it all, basically because she has spent so long covering the scandal in the first place. But while Cadwalladr is undeniably fascinating, it’s kind of disappointing that she’s the most fascinating person in the doc – basically because she isn’t telling us anything that her work hasn’t already told us. The film tries to add another level of interest with someone like David Carroll – a media professor, whose lawsuit against Cambridge Analytica serves as the framing device for the movie itself. Basically, Cambridge Analytica claimed that they had 5,000 data points on the people in their database – and Carroll’s lawsuit was to get them to give him the data that they collected on him specifically. There are some moments of Carroll in his classroom – talking to students who are younger than him – who never knew a time without the internet, without social media, etc. – who do not see it as such a big deal. I almost wanted more of what those young people had to say – because the film pretty much brings them up, and then dismisses them – like the old guy in the room who hears the question from the younger people, and tells them to sit down, shut up and listen to what he’s going to teach you. I was interested in what these younger people may have thought after it was explained just what Cambridge Analytica did if they still thought it wasn’t that big a deal – but the movie seems less interested in that.

 

I also wanted a little more information from the two people inside Cambridge Analytica who came forward to give us insights into the company itself. Christopher Wylie got more media attention (at least from what I saw) – and the movie lets him speak. It does bring up the other side – that he left the company before much of the scandal, etc. – but just kind of leaves that there. More problematic is Brittany Kaiser, who fashions herself – and the movie seemingly agrees – as a whistleblower, but she is basically blowing the whistle on herself. She isn’t someone who saw others doing something immoral, and felt the need to come forward. She basically admits that much of it she did herself – or was involved with. And she doesn’t seem all that guilt stricken over it either. I wish the film – which spends a lot of time with her – had pushed her harder into her own actions, her own culpability, etc.

 

And for that matter, I wish the film was more critical of us – those in the audience who willingly goes along with this all, and then shrugs out shoulders when we find out about it. As the movie makes clear, Cambridge Analytica played a role – perhaps not the deciding role, but not an insignificant one – in getting someone like Donald Trump elected, or something like Brexit happen – and in other elections, where they encourage young people not to vote, etc. It is not just collecting data to let us know of a new product we may want to buy – that’s creepy enough as it is, as anyone who has ever bought anything from Amazon, and then sees adds for related products on every site they visit after can attest. But it’s using the data to target – and lie to – people. To stoke their fears, to get them to think what they want them to – regardless of whether or its true. It’s not a benign force – but an actively insidious one. Yes, Cambridge Analytica is defunct now – but you’re crazy to think it was the only company doing that.

 

The Great Hack seems to not be as interested in that. It wants to lay out some facts, without getting too personal about it, not pushing too much further. As that, it’s a fine documentary – and if you don’t know about this scandal, you should see it. It will make you angry, Just, not as angry as you probably should be.