The Great Hack
Rating
C+ (78/100)
Three words
Documentary, Scandal, Interesting
Brief Review
The Great Hack is a documentary about the Cambridge Analytica scandal and how big data impacted the 2016 election. I’ll stay apolitical because this topic is political. I thought this was an interesting documentary, however you have to be interested in the topic. It really is more about the power of big data and how it can be used than it was about the election. It kind of just touches on the election. So I think overall The Great Hack lacks wide appeal. It is kind of techie and specific, so I don’t really think it is for everyone. For me, the most interesting part is the power of big data. It is both impressive and scary at the same time. For example they talk about how it seems like your devices are listening because you see an ad for what you talk about. However it is actually just the advertisers predicting what you will want based on your past behavior. It’s kind of amazing. On the flip side, there’s a lot of data collected on each of us. It’s kind of scary. One negative for me was how much the documentary targeted Facebook. It felt like a hit job and took away from the rest of the message. Ultimately this is more something you would have to be interested in beforehand to enjoy. However, I think this is also an interesting primer on just what is meant when you hear the term “big data”.
