Scan barcode
dovefromabove's review against another edition
5.0
Exceptional, insightful & fascinating work. It's so important that we do all we can to take control of our privacy & become better informed, choosing the luxury of real information over targeted free misinformation.
Global legislators must get better at regulating big tech & we must begin to remove the shackles of our data selves, learn & grow. The fact that this book (and others) thankfully exists, is a good start.
Global legislators must get better at regulating big tech & we must begin to remove the shackles of our data selves, learn & grow. The fact that this book (and others) thankfully exists, is a good start.
konvineo's review
1.0
DNF at page 84
I'm so disappointed in this one! I really want to know more about the whole Cambridge Analytica affair, but I can't get through this book. First of all the formatting/layout is atrocious. Super small text, no spacing and dense paragraphs. I kept losing my place, so I had to use my bookmark marking the sentence I was at. I don't know if it's just this edition, but it made reading so much harder.
I also just had to conclude that Wylie is just not a person I'd like very much based on how he writes. I agree with most of his stances, and opinions, but I find the way he writes really off putting. It seemed like he made a lot of assumptions about peoples motivations, and I don't know where he draws these conclusions from. Take some of the last things I read about Steve Bannon in the book. Wylie writes that Bannon was "quasi-religious" in his quest towards his goal, and saw himself as a messiah. That's a big assumption to make about a person, and I'm not trying to defend Bannon here. Bannon sounds like an awful person frankly, but could we not just describe him as fervent? Unless he actually described himself as a messiah, then go right ahead and expose him for being an absolute weirdo, but that's not what I got from the text. There were more places where I felt like this, but this is the last one that made me quit reading.
So I guess that if I want to know more about Cambridge Analytica I need to look elsewhere.
I'm so disappointed in this one! I really want to know more about the whole Cambridge Analytica affair, but I can't get through this book. First of all the formatting/layout is atrocious. Super small text, no spacing and dense paragraphs. I kept losing my place, so I had to use my bookmark marking the sentence I was at. I don't know if it's just this edition, but it made reading so much harder.
I also just had to conclude that Wylie is just not a person I'd like very much based on how he writes. I agree with most of his stances, and opinions, but I find the way he writes really off putting. It seemed like he made a lot of assumptions about peoples motivations, and I don't know where he draws these conclusions from. Take some of the last things I read about Steve Bannon in the book. Wylie writes that Bannon was "quasi-religious" in his quest towards his goal, and saw himself as a messiah. That's a big assumption to make about a person, and I'm not trying to defend Bannon here. Bannon sounds like an awful person frankly, but could we not just describe him as fervent? Unless he actually described himself as a messiah, then go right ahead and expose him for being an absolute weirdo, but that's not what I got from the text. There were more places where I felt like this, but this is the last one that made me quit reading.
So I guess that if I want to know more about Cambridge Analytica I need to look elsewhere.
rhargrave's review
5.0
Cambridge Analytica was a news story I was aware of but one that it turns out I knew very little about. This book and this brave man Christopher Wylie changed that, this book is a must read for the manly tech lovers out there that are starting to feel disenchanted by the magic utopia they were promised growing up.
shlowee's review against another edition
4.25
Excellent & terrifying
Why should we allow Big Tech to conduct scaled human experiments, only to realize that they become too big a problem to manage? We have seen radicalization, mass shootings, ethnic cleansing, eating disorders, changes in sleep patterns, and scaled assaults on our democracy, all directly influenced by social media. These may be intangible ecosystems, but the harms are not intangible for victims.
This book came out in 2019 and it's only gotten worse with "better" recommendation algorithms and the rise of generative AI. I hate how cool technologies and advances in science are used for evil. Linking social media use with a person psychological profile IS so interesting and such a fascinating field of research. Unfortunately, this has been taken over but military interest and is used to fuel atrocities. And yes, you can argue that social media/algorithms/computers aren't the ones that are directly committing murder/ethnic cleansing/destabilizing democracy, but they are the TOOLS that enable these atrocities. I fully agree that all of this (data science, tech, social media) NEEDS to be regulated.
darthvargas's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.25