Netflix's The Great Hack: Behind The Screens - Professor David Carroll - #089

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends, welcome back to the modern Wisdom Podcast. My guest today is Professor David Carroll. He is an Associate Professor of Media Design at Parsons School of Design, but he is slightly better known right now for being the man who took on Cambridge Analytica. If you've seen The Great Hack on Netflix, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. And if you haven't, I highly recommend that you go and watch it. It's definitely one of my favorite documentaries of 2019 Today, we are going Behind The Screens. We're going to find out a lot of information that was cut from the original documentary. We're going to hear what David's life is like now, that this is totally blown up. His predictions for Facebook moving forward, what's happening with Cambridge Analytica, if he's actually got his data yet, and an awful lot more. consider this the director's cut extra DVD super special edition done over Skype. Please welcome Professor David Carroll. PS, share this episode with some friends. A lot of people don't actually know the dangers to do with data privacy right now. And as David says, data rights are akin to human rights. Also feel free to share it on Facebook as a big middle finger to Mark Zuckerberg.
I'm joined by Professor David Carroll. Professor, welcome to the show.

**David Carroll** (1:37)
It's great to be on here. Thanks for having me.

**Chris Williamson** (1:39)
What is your life like at the moment?

**David Carroll** (1:44)
It's pretty overwhelming. The response to the film is mind blowing, mostly because I get so many messages per minute from people around the world saying that their mind is blown. So this sort of mutual mind blowing is happening right now. And it's overwhelming.
I never expected it to go this big.

**Chris Williamson** (2:08)
So I mean, you were in the press during the first iteration, like the real time unveiling of this particular storyline. And now there's this sort of recap of all of that, that's got Netflix's power behind it. So yeah, it doesn't surprise me that you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed by that. The last couple of days, it's only been out for, upon when we're recording now, like two days, I think 24th it came out on Netflix. And usually when people suggest something to me and different spheres of awareness say the same thing, I'm like, right, I need to take notice of this. In the space of two days, I'd like five people like, man, man, if you watch that, The Great Hack on Netflix, it's sick, you gotta go watch it. I'm like, okay, cool, fair enough. So yes, for the people who do not know why your life is chaos at the moment and what's been going on, could you give us a rundown of what we're talking about?

**David Carroll** (3:05)
Sure. So a weird company has been working in elections around the world for a long time and allegedly worked on the Brexit campaign and the Trump presidential campaigns as well as others.
And the movie looks at the stories of three people who were involved in learning more and unraveling the scandal behind that. So it follows Carol cadwallader, who was the primary journalist for The Observer and The Guardian, who really uncovered the story for the press and the world. It covers Brittany Kaiser, who was really high up in the company and was with the company up until the very end. She tries to come out and spill the information that everybody is seeking. Then myself, who learned that I could try to get my data from the company using British law, and it follows my legal struggle still to this day, trying to get my data back, which under British law is required. So it's been fascinating to see how the British government, being parliament and the information commissioner, have been the strongest force in the world to hold the company accountable, and even more accountable than the United States government and the United States regulators. So the movie is a story about how journalism and citizens and the law can hack back against these technological forces. For people who are hoping for a movie that explains and gives you the proof of whether or not this stuff worked, those people will be disappointed. This is not a movie about whether it worked. This is a movie about whether we can live in a democracy where this stuff is going on.

**Chris Williamson** (5:08)
Yeah. The big question that hangs over the top of all of it is, did they do it? If you watch the movie at the end of it, there's still the natural slipperiness of large corporations like this and the specific evasive tactics that get used in hearings and stuff like that. There's no straight answer. There isn't a yes, we did it, no, we didn't. For every accusation, so there's an accusation that worked with Leave.EU. This is Cambridge Analytica, it's the company that we're talking about. There's an accusation that worked with Leave.EU. There's some pretty damning evidence, like emails going backwards and forwards, Brittany, who was one of the head execs there, sitting on the announcement for the Leave.EU thing, etc. Yet, when asked, Andrew Nix, who is the head guy at Cambridge Analytica, says, no, we didn't do it. Was it Andrew Nix?