Review: Good Data by Sam Gilbert

 There has been an awful lot in the news about so-called Surveillance Capitalism, particularly in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the documentary of The Great Hack, and other social media based documentaries. 

However, in this book, Gilbert seeks to assuage the fears set out by the above titles. His argument essentially lays out how use of data from our social media activities can be used for good. 

I was sceptical at first; after all, Gilbert’s business relied on the data they were able to gather from social media users. However, as the book  went on, I found myself more and more persuaded by his arguments as research. He doesn’t set out to deny the harm done by Facebook users (eg in Myanmar, where the army used Facebook to perpetrate harm against the Rohingya) but he does also show how Facebook’s ad-based business model allows for, in some ways, democratisation of the internet and allowed popular protest and dissent to give power to citizens. 

Gilbert’s book is written very clearly, logically, and - most importantly for non-tech-minded readers - with a huge degree of accessibility. I still retain the opinion that tech giants should be more regulated and be forced to include greater fact checking on their sites but Gilbert has persuaded me that my data on the internet can end up being used for worthy causes. 

 Good Data: An Optimist's Guide to Our Digital Future by Sam Gilbert is published 1st April 2021, published by Welbeck, price £14.99 in hardback.