Netflix 's new documentary , " The Great Hack ," explores the connections between Cambridge Analytica , the US election, and Brexit .
This documentary is the first we've seen to delve into what's really going on in the world of social media, dark advertising, and global politics, which seem to be interconnected. It's also the first to explain how social media - especially Facebook - now controls our lives and society, whether we like it or not.
The British referendum decision to leave the European Union was, in effect, the staging ground for a Cambridge Analytica experiment, says Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr. She told the story of how the political consultancy, led by Alexander Nix, used “psyops” techniques commonly used in Afghanistan, in US and UK democracy operations and in many other countries, for more than 20 years. Watching this film, you literally start to wonder if history has been twisted into a sick dystopia.
The Brexit experiment worked. As the documentary explains, millions of ads targeted individuals, exploiting their fear and anger to change their minds, first in the case of Brexit in the UK and then in the election of Trump.
The documentary's creators also show how CA worked directly with Trump's "Project Alamo" campaign, spending a million dollars a day on Facebook ads before the 2016 election.
The film chronicles how CA initially worked on Ted Cruz's campaign and nearly propelled that candidate to the top of the Republican nomination race. It was then that the Trump campaign took over CA's military-style operation.
After uploading the psychographic research information that CA had obtained from Cambridge University academic Aleksandr Kogan, who completed the data collection on Facebook, they proceeded to influence public opinion.
Meanwhile in London, Cadwalladr has noticed that the Brexiteers have become “twinned” with Trump and has started looking into it. There is a thread that connects them to Breitbart owner Steve Bannon. There is a thread that connects them to Cambridge Analytica. She seems to be pulling the strings and is starting to realize that Cambridge Analytica is the one that connects them all. But she needs a source of information, which comes in the form of former CA employee Chris Wylie, a brave young man who managed to reveal many of the company’s secrets.
However, the film’s attention is often focused on Brittany Kaiser, a former Cambridge Analytica employee who worked first on US political campaigns and then on the Brexit campaign for CA. But is she really one of those who want to expose what’s going on? Or was she simply trying to cover her tracks? How could someone who worked on the Obama campaign work for the Trump campaign? Was she a victim of Cambridge Analytica or one of its villains?
British political analyst Paul Hilder manages to bring her to the United Kingdom to testify before a parliamentary group. Her testimony presents many aspects of the story and is particularly interesting.
Other characters appear in this film. Zuckerberg appears in Congress and we learn about the casual relationship that Facebook had with his complicity in these political struggles.
What you won't learn from this movie is what happens next. For many, there are questions that remain unanswered: What will happen now that Facebook is getting into cryptocurrency? Does this mean it could be used for a shady election campaign? Will people be paid for their votes next time? Kaiser has a bitcoin on the back of her phone. Does that have anything to do with any of this? The movie doesn't address that.
