A Filmmaker's Review: "The Great Hack" (2019) [Netflix]

I'm not going to lie but this is one of the better documentaries on social media I've seen, though it isn't perfect. It is enjoyable to watch. When it comes to how revolutionary this documentary really is, I think it doesn't do much good in being 'revolutionary' - choosing mostly to play it safe and speak kindly to the safest people whilst using no real method of force to get the whole story. The one thing I did like however, is that the editing does not cut out these attempts on the people involved, it showcases clearly that the other side has basically refused to co-operate.

If the world hadn't had enough of the fact that Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp and other sites are mining your data then well, prepare for yet another documentary about that, but bigger. Cambridge Analytica has now become synonymous in the modern day with Orwellian villainy on the scale of Big Brother or, where the other books are concerned, the spy Moses. The attempts made by news-folk to explain the scandal has been thorough and yet bits and pieces appropriately left out for the reason that all media was possibly involved, ironically speaking.

When we look at how recent the problem was, most of us remember it unfolding on the news and most of us probably had our data stolen. When we look at this documentary, it doesn't really give off that perspective but what it does do is make us aware that behind this big computer problem that has known to be called evil tech, has very real and very very bad people behind it. Normally rich white men who have a complete disregard for human decency like most men do. However, when we watch the documentary even though there is a female whistleblower that was also heavily linked with the problem itself, I regret that I don't feel any sympathy for her whatsoever. I think she should be equally punished for what she allowed to take place. No good turning your back on it once all the shit's already gone down and all the problems are already out there.

One other thing I didn't like about this documentary is that it still had some sort of disregard for law. It didn't tell you exactly why they did what they did and there seems to be no motive. There are seemingly gaping holes in the research done into this scandal including the investigation into Facebook and the way in which the site worked with CA. It only touches on how Facebook itself was linked, with the bigger picture seeming to be that your data has been stolen and sold. Yes, but it doesn't mention enough about why that happened in the first place. I think the public are well aware of what happens when our data is sold to third parties.

The jumpiness of the documentary seems to take eye away from the motive and I can tell you why that is - they don't know the motive. They don't know what the motive was. This is the main problem for the documentary since if we don't have the motive, everything else becomes a slight distortion because we never really have the whole story. The motive isn't to 'change people's minds' and it's not to 'mine data and sell it' - I mean the motive for collecting the data in the first place. It is rarely ever touched on but I believe that the motive initially was to turn people again each other again. Get men fighting to stop women's rights, get white people fighting against black people again and getting political leaders to weigh in on these issues they'd created themselves and state, rather emptily that they were going to solve them. It never happened and what we have is a generation of white men who basically are the symbols of hatred - that's what they've created through this distortion of fact.

The one thing I liked about this documentary is that it used clear sources. There was Brittany Kaiser and the rest of them, the villains speaking on their own behalf and well, I couldn't have asked for much more. There was a sense of clarity from them even though they forgot to touch on certain things. It was the closest thing we'll get when it comes to the CA scandal because it was the voices of the people involved.

However, when it comes to collating information, this documentary may be a little all over the place. It needs more focus when it comes to its topic and probably would've been better as a series of episodes rather than one long documentary film. It seems like the effort for one long documentary film makes everything seemed squished together and a bit rushed. When it comes to the way in which the documentary is filmed, it takes the shape of what is a series of interviews. What we do have is various news reports as well. This isn't a fault but is actually pretty good, it makes the documentary look more authentic but, again, after a repetitive notion - it becomes more and more boring each time.

In conclusion, I feel like this documentary needs some serious work before it becomes perfect and the way in which the documentary portrays its subject requires work in terms of rushing and work in terms of motives. If this is to be a true crime documentary then it needs a motive, not just a solution to a problem that nobody knows why it happened.