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Documentary Film: The Great Hack

This is a documentary film about Cambridge Analytica Data Services and the impact this company had on the 2016 Presidential election, Brexit, Trinidad-Tobago politics, the conflict in Myanmar (Burma) with the Rohinjas, and who knows what else.

Cambridge Analytica is a personal data collection company. It collects all kinds of personal data about everyone all over the world. Supposedly, it has 5,000 pieces of personal data culled from voter registration files on every American and most people in first world countries. Toward the end of the film, it says it probably has about 70,000 pieces of personal data about all of us.

Some questions that were posed by the U.S. citizen who brought the lawsuit in London are: How did they get our personal data; (2) Who do they share it with? And (3) Can we opt out?

This company developed a One-Click Personality Test that goes into your friends’ network once you click it. This is one of the ways they are able to build a vast network of personal data from so many people.

When you watch this documentary and its analysis of the 2016 U.S. elections, Cambridge Analytica targeted the three states they thought could influence the U.S. elections. They then proceeded to target about 100,000 people whom they thought were “undecided” and whom they thought they could influence (manipulate?) to vote their way. They accomplished this by building a psychological profile on each of them and sending out propaganda to them via the various social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

Assignment: After viewing this documentary, write an evaluation of this film and whether you agree or disagree that we should have the right to protect our personal data from being sold. In other words, our personal data is a commodity that is being bought and sold and used for profit without our permission.

Discuss this film and your views; whether this information should be allowed to be used to influence political votes; and, if treating this personal data like a commodity, poses a danger to U.S. elections or any elections throughout the world; whether the unauthorized use of this personal data to spread propaganda should be limited/circumscribed. Think of the fourth amendment right to privacy.

Write a report, double-spaced, 1 1/2 pages in length giving your views on this documentary, its impact on rights of individuals to own their personal data, the right to privacy, taking of private property without compensation and without permission, etc.