Carole Cadwalladr
TED talks
17 min.
Apr 9, 2025
I've been feeling a lot of panic and fear about this talk. And not just for the normal reasons of public speaking, although that's there, too. But it's also because I want to say something meaningful, and I've been overwhelmed by the enormity of what is happening right now. And there's a particular set of circumstances which have also been feeding into my confusion and denial.
00:36
And that is because the last time that I stood on this stage, it led to a three-year legal battle, culminated in London's High Court, in which it felt like I was on trial for my life, because I was. My career, my reputation, my finances, even my home was on the line. All because I came here to warn you that I didn't think democracy was going to survive the technology that you're building, however incredible it is.
01:13
In fact, I was the person who almost didn't survive, and pretty much everything I was warning about is now coming true. I can't sugarcoat it. It's a bit of a headfuck.
01:27
(Laughter)
01:30
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.
01:48
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.
02:16
This is my guide, and it has to start with naming it. It's a coup.
02:26
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.
02:34
(Applause)
02:41
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.
02:58
Coups are like concrete. When they stop moving, they set. It is already later than we think.
03:07
This image, some of you in this room might know these people. I call it tech bros in hostage situations. It's a message to you. This is Putin's playbook. He allows a business elite to make untold riches in exchange for absolute loyalty.
03:26
Some people are calling this oligarchy, but it's actually bigger than that. These are global platforms. It's broligarchy. [Tech bros + oligarchy = broligarchy]
03:40
(Laughter and murmuring)
03:42
(Applause)
03:48
There is an alignment of interests that runs through Silicon Valley to what is now a coming autocracy. It's a type of power that the world has never seen before.
04:07
[Follow the data]
04:09
It's always the data. It's the crack cocaine of Silicon Valley. You know, the first thing that Elon Musk did was to send his cyber troops into the US Treasury to get access to the data. That is not a coincidence. It's a hack. That data is now feeding AIs that are choosing who to sack and who to replace -- Sorry -- eliminate fraud and waste.
04:34
(Laughter)
04:36
When we broke the Cambridge Analytica story about the harvesting [of] 87 million people’s Facebook data, people freaked out, rightly. [That] is chicken feed compared to [this]. But it is the blueprint. It's always the data. Which is why it's so important that you start thinking about your private life. The broligarchy doesn't want you to have one. This is the old headquarters of the East German secret police. They kept detailed files on almost one in three of their citizens. That is nothing compared to what Google has on every single one of us, and hundreds of other companies. The entire business model of Silicon Valley is surveillance. It harvests our data in order to sell us stuff. We are already living inside the architecture of totalitarianism.
COINTINUE READING:
Transcript: https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_this_is_what_a_digital_coup_looks_like/transcript
Video: https://youtu.be/TZOoT8AbkNE?si=BRNHrO8jv-urKpzZ
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