In 2019 Carole Cadwalladr gave a TED talk that broke from the tradition of glowing techno-optimism. In it, she broke the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. It met with a lot of anger, and she got sued.
She won, and now she's back with a talk about the "digital coup" in the US. I'll just quote a lot of the transcript.
...
I have a lot of emotions about coming here. And TED, also, I suspect, is feeling them too. But what actually I finally realized yesterday is that the denial and the confusion that I've been feeling is maybe what you're feeling, too.
I felt powerless for a really long time. So if that's what you're feeling, I get it. But we have to act now. My alarm system is ringing again. There are things that we can do. In my case, I survived. And you will too. But it's by learning how to fight back. This is my guide, and it has to start with naming it. It's a coup.
I know you probably don't want to hear that, and especially here, but we can’t fight it if we can’t see it. And we can’t see it if we don’t name it.
The Russian and American presidents are now speaking the same words. They are telling the same lies. We are watching the collapse of the international order in real time. And this is just the start.
Coups are like concrete. When they stop moving, they set. It is already later than we think.
(1/n)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZOoT8AbkNE
John Carlos Baez /
npub17u…8pd6m
2025-04-14 20:13:48
Author Public Key
npub17u6xav5rjq4d48fpcyy6j05rz2xelp7clnl8ptvpnval9tvmectqp8pd6mPublished at
2025-04-14 20:13:48Event JSON
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