During Plenary 3
25 mins. 2018Christopher Wylie, the so-called ‘data whistleblower’ who worked for Cambridge Analytica, reveals how, in early 2014, 87 million Facebook users information was taken without authorisation to build a system to profile and target US voters with personalised political advertisements. At the time the company was owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and headed by Donald Trump’s key adviser, Steve Bannon. Using the architecture Wylie helped to engineer, people are perceived as observable, measurable data sets, allowing for the prediction and modification of behaviour. No longer ‘simply’ about privacy, it has the capacity to create an entirely new level of social inequality. This short film acts as a beacon to investigate a system that is on its way to becoming an all encompassing new power structure that we currently know far too little about.
After the screening the Plenary 3 speakers will discuss the issues raised in the film with Jess Search.
