Melogin S.

Dominguez BSBA-
MM2-1
LivIT-MWF(8:00-9:00)

The Great Hack” where someone brings up controversial social experiments like Dr.
Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. These were psychological projects meant
to test the limits of human nature, empathy and good old fashioned common sense.
They measured how far the deck needed to be stacked before the observed subjects
voluntarily went along with an authority they knew better than to follow. Sometimes the
results unearthed a dormant evil in a person, but more often than not, when
participants were interviewed, they revealed a desire to be rewarded for following
instructions and a fear of being ostracized if they had not.
The Great Hack” blends in details about how the many strides in computer technology
and data analysis now allow a massive, global expansion of a new type of social
experiment, one that involves reshaping the world in a particular image. Here, social
media becomes the new Petri dish, enticing users with hot trends and ideas that
demanded immediate consumption and acceptance lest the user risk being left behind.
Facebook and Twitter have so easily exploited this notion in the culture that the term
“fear of missing out” was coined to describe it. It was only a matter of time before
someone applied this to politics and elections.
The Great Hack” concerns itself with the United States Presidential election of 2016 and,
to a lesser extent, the Brexit vote and other international political campaigns. The
common factor in all these events is a now-defunct firm called Cambridge Analytica,
represented throughout the film by several former employees. At the height of its
powers, the company held up to 5,000 data points about each of the people contained
in its databases. This information was used for a variety of purposes meant to
manipulate a certain cross-section of people. The master manipulators didn’t go after
people whose minds had been made up; they went after on-the-fence folks referred to
as “the persuadables.” Using the collected data, Cambridge Analytica set out to create
fear and/or apathy to achieve the results of the political parties that hired them. The
Great Hack” will be catnip for data wonks and mathematicians, but I sense its desired
purpose is to be a cautionary tale for the general viewer. I think it’s a tad too long and a
bit too wishy-washy when it should be angrier, but I was fascinated by it for a very
specific personal reason. I have been a computer programmer for 32 years now, 17 of
those years have involved some form of data analysis not unlike some of the things I saw
in this film. Over time, I’ve learned how valuable data can be to a business or an entity
like a retail chain. How that data can be used to determine what items are considered
“impulse buys,” that is, the stuff you see near the register. Or how sales during happy
hour can be useful to a beer company in terms of deciding when to show up at your
local hangout to do in-person promotions. It’s all about how we’re so easily swayed
toward a desired outcome.
We’re told that tech companies are the richest businesses in the world, and since data is
the hottest commodity on the market, they’ll do anything to get it. That we don’t know
what’s being done with our data is the scariest aspect of all this. “The Great Hack”
hammers that point home quite successfully, even if it doesn’t have the guts to chastise
us for our voluntary contributions.
The story "The Great Hack" tells is a disturbing one, but you will be hard-pressed to find
it in this over-produced documentary. Too much FX and dramatic music playing during
the "B-roll" footage as Carroll and Kaiser stare at the horizon from faceless hotel
balconies. I don't need this documentary to tell me how to feel.
My point, I suppose, is all's fair in love and war when it comes to getting elected. It is
terrifying that fake news being inserted into the populace can swing crucial votes and
world history. For the rest of my life, I will never forget a stunned George
Stephanopoulos stuttering and then admitting on live TV, "It appears we have a huge
upset brewing." After watching "The Great Hack," I now have an idea as to just how
Trump won an election against all expert predictions. It's not the only reason, but it's
one of them.