The Great Hack
29 Jul 2019
A rainy, wet weekend is the best for a movie in the afternoon. Netflix had nudged me via email (clever!) that The Great Hack has been released so I decided to watch it. I did follow a bit of the Cambridge Analytica scandal when it broke so I knew what the move was about but did not know the finer details which the movie portrayed so well - the whistleblowers, secret meetings and bringing this entire saga together in 1.5 hrs.
What was mind-boggling was the mining of user data, analysing emotions through the data and then targeted messaging on Facebook to change the person's views on certain subjects i.e. altering human behaviour! This is plain wrong.
We all have come to terms that "Data is the new oil". Companies have a responsibility to protect and safeguard personal data and let people know what, when and how their data is being used. I guess this is the reason why the GDPR was created.
Watch this documentary if you haven't already. It will open your eyes to what is happening behind the scenes on how much do the social networks know about us - more than what we know about ourselves!