It’s rare that a documentary comes along that changes your perception of the world but from the off The Great Hack on Netflix opened my eyes to a lot of things.
The two-hour-long piece, which dropped this week on Netflix, centres around Cambridge Analytica and how their data mining and monetisation of messages highly influenced both the trump presidential campaign and outcome of Brexit.
Both are highly controversial aspects of society and the documentary expertly uses eye witness testimony from both whistleblowers and those on the conspiracy theories to paint the picture that life on the web has us all tangled within it.
A Mind-Bending Look At Social Media
The piece is pretty revolutionary and it’s often difficult for documentaries to really capture your imagination for a prolonged period, however, The Great Hack manages to do this due to its gripping narrative throughout.
It analyses how as a species we have sold our souls to social media and because of this we have become commodities that are able to be targeted by those with an agenda who may wish to persuade us to come round to their way of thinking.
There are huge names attached to the project and throughout I was really shocked at the reveals and revelations that the way I had used the internet had turned me into a target that was going to be manipulated by the likes of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
This is a really harrowing thing to be faced with and whilst watching the film I often felt like I’d been conned in some way and began questioning whether my thoughts were indeed my own.
It’s a really amazing documentary that massively will make you question your choices in the past and if they were really your own.
A Documentary For Our Times
Similar to things like supersize me, bowling for Columbine and more, this documentary accomplishes its goal of forcing you to stand back and analyse whether indulging in these things is worth the overall cost.
It’s such a powerful message and when the documentary finally brings up Mark Zuckerberg’s meeting with congress, you really get behind the work and want to see whether there is any hope to the hole that humanity has dug itself into.
From here it escalates and feels like a real tale of the people vs the power. It’s an excellent chronicle of just how much we have to take back our personal data and ultimately lets us know that going forward we need to be diligent in fighting against big corporations that see us as a means to an end.
It perfectly picks its heroes and villains and really makes you question the way the world operates in modern times.
The Verdict
Overall the great Hack is probably the best documentary of 2019 thus far and Netflix have created a masterpiece that will likely be looked back on in future years as a time capsule of our times and what caused Brexit and Trump’s election whether they be for better or worse.
They even answer the conspiracy theory that your phone microphone is always recording and let us know that no, we are creatures of habit and can be easily fooled, manipulated and persuaded into certain directions.
The Great Hack makes us realise that in the end, we have to carry more responsibility ourselves in what we post and do online and yeah…I’m pretty much off to delete the internet right now haha….ok maybe just Facebook.
I really can’t big this documentary up enough and because of this, it gets a perfect…
10/10
Your Thoughts
Obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on The Great Hack and if you enjoyed it as much as I did. Comment below and let me know!
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