"Terms and Conditions May Apply" - directed by Cullen Hoback
I enjoy a documentary every now and then but I kind of hate writing about them.
They are very rarely documentaries as such and the vast majority seek to right a wrong (perceived or real) and become agenda fueled polemic.
And this presents a dilemma for me.
In writing about these films should I seek to separate the truth from the fiction?
Is it necessary to make a decision as to the veracity of the content in order to 'rate' the film?
Or is it merely best to focus on how well the film presents its ideas and balances its facts and theories?
Honestly- I don't know.
And that is why the exercise of posting about documentaries feels almost like a waste of time.
People will believe what they will either way.
In watching both "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" I witnessed audiences lapping up decidedly suspect theories and comments merely because they seemed to reinforce what they already believed.
And of course a lot of documentaries are about exactly that idea - the freedom to make your own choices and live how you want.
This one of course is no different because it tackles issues related to digital information and the way it is used and abused by corporations, individuals and Governments.
So, I am going to try - as I always do with documentaries- to remove my pre-conceived notions and biases from the discussion about "Terms and Conditions May Apply".
First of all a warning of sorts to anyone seeing this at a Film Festival - more specifically the Auckland or Wellington International Film Festivals....
This film is preceded by a short film called "#Postmodem".
Do not make the mistake that I did and assume that this is part of the documentary and become disillusioned.
It is a 14 minute long pretentious bore that is in all honesty one of the worst things that I have ever seen.
Fortunately what follows is far more interesting.
As "Terms and Conditions May Apply" began setting up the topics that would be explored during its 79 minute running time I was immediately struck by the irony of attending a film about our digital identities and issues of privacy for which I purchased tickets online using my name, e-mail address and credit card information.
It does hammer home how immediately relevant the matters discussed are.
We live in an age in which people are so willing to post intimate details and pictures about their lives that a CIA representative called Facebook 'A gift from God'.
Of course names like Wikileaks' Julian Assange and NSA 'whistleblower' Edward Johnson immediately spring to mind with the latter the current name du jour.
The film throws up both names without any discussion over their actions in terms of national security.
Some acknowledgement that authorities must have tools at their disposal to provide security would have been good.
I would have liked to have seen more discussion generally on the need for forms of security balanced against the need to have rights to privacy.
Barack Obama is shown as a Senator declaring that there must be such a balance.
Later it is said that he turned his back on this statement and instituted all manner of information gathering systems.
There is no exploration of this apparent flip-flop or suggestion as to why it might have happened.
A massive NSA complex is being built in the desert in Utah and there is frequent discussion and debate in my own country about the monitoring globes situated at the top of the South Island in Waihopai.
Recently the GCSB bill was put in place allowing local agencies to monitor NZ data rather than just foreign.
It is a very, very difficult thing to assess at what point important national security ends and personal freedom begins.
There is a lack of acknowledgement of this in "Terms and Conditions May Apply" and that to me is a shame because it immediately makes me suspect that this is a film seeking a pre-decided outcome.
Generally I don't have a problem with this but it does make me somewhat suspicious that not every side is being portrayed equally.
For instance why do private corporations allow this information to get to the Government?
Are they forced to give it or is there a mutually beneficial reason for them to do so?
There are a lot of questions left unanswered.
Having said that- what is shown is undeniably fascinating and thought provoking.
We see examples of Facebook's ever shifting privacy policies and the revelation that they themselves don't acknowledge one of the key past changes despite claiming to have a full history of such changes on their website.
There is a discussion with Irish bar manager Leigh Bryan who sent a tweet out prior to a trip to the United States that resulted in him being detained at a US airport to be questioned for five hours followed by an overnight stay in a lockup and deportation.
The tweet that caused this?.....
What is amazing here is that clearly the systems required to monitor the amount of data being tossed around worldwide networks are so automated as to be devoid of any reason.
Completely missing that the word 'destroy' is used in this context to mean 'party' the young man was immediately flagged as a terror threat.
Even more incredible is the seventh grader who was questioned by authorities after posting concern that Barack Obama might be a terrorist target after Osam Bin Laden was killed.
For me the most worrying moment is a series of Google searches by a man named Jerome Schwartz.
He searched for things including 'how to kill my wife', 'decapitations' and oddly- 'steak cheese'!
Naturally this would cast a bright beam of suspicion on him but when director Hoback asks the man about his search history it is revealed that he is a scriptwriter for television show "Cold Case" and he was merely researching storylines.
It is a prearranged meeting used to highlight the issue but it is effective nonethless and handled a lot better than some of the clumsily handled material that follows.
In part this can be attributed to the film trying to cover too much in too short a time.
We get everything barring the kitchen sink thrown in with John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, Moby and futurist Ray Kurweil all making appearances.
Kurzweil deserves more time than he is given because regardless of whether you think he is a visionary or an out and out kook he is a fascinating man.
Without context his contributions are all but meaningless.
Perhaps the biggest 'guest' is none other than Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg himself.
Using information obtained online Hoback and his crew track Zuckerberg down and stake out his house.
Seeing him leave the property to take a walk they follow him and ask for an interview.
Zuckerberg politely asks Hoback to turn the camera off and he does so without revealing that he is still filming using a hidden camera.
The Facebook boss seems to relax once he believes his request has been granted.
It neatly makes the point that Facebook should allow for an opt in option on privacy rather than an opt out one.
We are shown an IM chat between Zuckerberg and a friend while he was in college and developing Facebook....
In fairness anything taken in isolation and used later against future events can be made to look bad but this wasn't sure doesn't look good.
Even worse is Googles head man Eric Schmidt announcing that.....
“If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.”
He then complains when photos of his own residence are printed using his very own Google Maps.
The entire issue of online privacy is an important, controversial one.
Whilst Apple, Microsoft and Amazon come out of this largely unscathed Google, Facebook and several Government agencies and individual representatives do not.
Microsoft is currently dealing with revelations that its upcoming Xbox One console and the attached Kinect camera record all manner of data including video and audio and by agreement share it with the US Government.
Edward Johnson is still living in a Moscow airport after leaking information about the the NSA's 'Prism' system.
Even as I typed that last sentence it occurs to me that this blog could be flagged as suspicious simply because of the phrases used to describe the film.
But the question is how paranoid should we be?
How sensitive should we be about what we post to Facebook, tweet on Twitter, post in forums and blogs, e-mail to friends or include in sign up documents?
There must be a point when the benefits outweigh the risks or the loss of privacy.
After all even before the internet was the preferred method of dealing with companies we thought nothing of mailing in forms filled with our details.
The difference of course is that every little bit of data that we share online can be tied to us to form a greater picture of what we do and who we are than we may have intended.
The comparison that I would draw is that phone books are made readily available to us and they have the names, addresses and phone numbers of millions of people in them.
In printed form they are limited as to what the data can be used for.
If I want to know a number I must know the name of the person or company first.
If that very same phone book existed in digital form I could merely enter a number and find out what name was assigned to it.
The online White and Yellow Page phone books don't allow you to do this but companies like Facebook and Google sure can- they have all of the information in tables ready to be cross referenced
And much, much more on top.
"Terms and Conditions May Apply" is a compelling watch more due to the subject being explored than by its execution.
If nothing else it is a conversation starter and provides enough fascinating material to make it easy to recommend as a watch.
The presentation is largely excellent and I appreciated the constant use of name captioning for even repeated guests.
Some news channels in my own country could learn much from this!
I do have some questions as to why contributions by Barrett Brown- 'unofficial spokesman' for online group Anonymous were not backed up by some history about that group and its often dubious history.
Instead the young, rather stoned (or very tired) looking man is given free reign with his thoughts.
On the whole this is a highly watchable, very interesting film.
Leaving the cinema I was struck by so many ironies.
I watched dozens of smartphones being switched on as the audience left- no doubt with GPS tracking enabled and a host of social apps running.
The vast majority of people entering had used the same devices to wave digital tickets purchased online at the ushers.
The same people I had heard gasp and 'tut-tut' throughout the film were actively participating in the system that had been explored for the last hour and a bit.
Having said that I knew that I would come home later to type up this blog post on services provided by Google linked to Gmail accounts and fed out through friends on Twitter, Facebook and Google +
They are very rarely documentaries as such and the vast majority seek to right a wrong (perceived or real) and become agenda fueled polemic.
And this presents a dilemma for me.
In writing about these films should I seek to separate the truth from the fiction?
Is it necessary to make a decision as to the veracity of the content in order to 'rate' the film?
Or is it merely best to focus on how well the film presents its ideas and balances its facts and theories?
Honestly- I don't know.
And that is why the exercise of posting about documentaries feels almost like a waste of time.
People will believe what they will either way.
In watching both "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" I witnessed audiences lapping up decidedly suspect theories and comments merely because they seemed to reinforce what they already believed.
And of course a lot of documentaries are about exactly that idea - the freedom to make your own choices and live how you want.
This one of course is no different because it tackles issues related to digital information and the way it is used and abused by corporations, individuals and Governments.
So, I am going to try - as I always do with documentaries- to remove my pre-conceived notions and biases from the discussion about "Terms and Conditions May Apply".
First of all a warning of sorts to anyone seeing this at a Film Festival - more specifically the Auckland or Wellington International Film Festivals....
This film is preceded by a short film called "#Postmodem".
Do not make the mistake that I did and assume that this is part of the documentary and become disillusioned.
It is a 14 minute long pretentious bore that is in all honesty one of the worst things that I have ever seen.
Fortunately what follows is far more interesting.
 |
| Michael Pachter, Leigh Bryan, Ray Kurweil and Google's Eric Schmidt |
As "Terms and Conditions May Apply" began setting up the topics that would be explored during its 79 minute running time I was immediately struck by the irony of attending a film about our digital identities and issues of privacy for which I purchased tickets online using my name, e-mail address and credit card information.
It does hammer home how immediately relevant the matters discussed are.
We live in an age in which people are so willing to post intimate details and pictures about their lives that a CIA representative called Facebook 'A gift from God'.
Of course names like Wikileaks' Julian Assange and NSA 'whistleblower' Edward Johnson immediately spring to mind with the latter the current name du jour.
The film throws up both names without any discussion over their actions in terms of national security.
Some acknowledgement that authorities must have tools at their disposal to provide security would have been good.
I would have liked to have seen more discussion generally on the need for forms of security balanced against the need to have rights to privacy.
Barack Obama is shown as a Senator declaring that there must be such a balance.
Later it is said that he turned his back on this statement and instituted all manner of information gathering systems.
There is no exploration of this apparent flip-flop or suggestion as to why it might have happened.
A massive NSA complex is being built in the desert in Utah and there is frequent discussion and debate in my own country about the monitoring globes situated at the top of the South Island in Waihopai.
Recently the GCSB bill was put in place allowing local agencies to monitor NZ data rather than just foreign.
It is a very, very difficult thing to assess at what point important national security ends and personal freedom begins.
There is a lack of acknowledgement of this in "Terms and Conditions May Apply" and that to me is a shame because it immediately makes me suspect that this is a film seeking a pre-decided outcome.
Generally I don't have a problem with this but it does make me somewhat suspicious that not every side is being portrayed equally.
For instance why do private corporations allow this information to get to the Government?
Are they forced to give it or is there a mutually beneficial reason for them to do so?
There are a lot of questions left unanswered.
 |
| Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg |
We see examples of Facebook's ever shifting privacy policies and the revelation that they themselves don't acknowledge one of the key past changes despite claiming to have a full history of such changes on their website.
There is a discussion with Irish bar manager Leigh Bryan who sent a tweet out prior to a trip to the United States that resulted in him being detained at a US airport to be questioned for five hours followed by an overnight stay in a lockup and deportation.
The tweet that caused this?.....
What is amazing here is that clearly the systems required to monitor the amount of data being tossed around worldwide networks are so automated as to be devoid of any reason.
Completely missing that the word 'destroy' is used in this context to mean 'party' the young man was immediately flagged as a terror threat.
Even more incredible is the seventh grader who was questioned by authorities after posting concern that Barack Obama might be a terrorist target after Osam Bin Laden was killed.
For me the most worrying moment is a series of Google searches by a man named Jerome Schwartz.
He searched for things including 'how to kill my wife', 'decapitations' and oddly- 'steak cheese'!
Naturally this would cast a bright beam of suspicion on him but when director Hoback asks the man about his search history it is revealed that he is a scriptwriter for television show "Cold Case" and he was merely researching storylines.
It is a prearranged meeting used to highlight the issue but it is effective nonethless and handled a lot better than some of the clumsily handled material that follows.
In part this can be attributed to the film trying to cover too much in too short a time.
We get everything barring the kitchen sink thrown in with John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, Moby and futurist Ray Kurweil all making appearances.
Kurzweil deserves more time than he is given because regardless of whether you think he is a visionary or an out and out kook he is a fascinating man.
Without context his contributions are all but meaningless.
Perhaps the biggest 'guest' is none other than Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg himself.
Using information obtained online Hoback and his crew track Zuckerberg down and stake out his house.
Seeing him leave the property to take a walk they follow him and ask for an interview.
Zuckerberg politely asks Hoback to turn the camera off and he does so without revealing that he is still filming using a hidden camera.
The Facebook boss seems to relax once he believes his request has been granted.
It neatly makes the point that Facebook should allow for an opt in option on privacy rather than an opt out one.
We are shown an IM chat between Zuckerberg and a friend while he was in college and developing Facebook....
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don’t know why.
Zuck: They “trust me”
Zuck: Dumb fucks.
In fairness anything taken in isolation and used later against future events can be made to look bad but this wasn't sure doesn't look good.
Even worse is Googles head man Eric Schmidt announcing that.....
“If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.”
He then complains when photos of his own residence are printed using his very own Google Maps.
The entire issue of online privacy is an important, controversial one.
Whilst Apple, Microsoft and Amazon come out of this largely unscathed Google, Facebook and several Government agencies and individual representatives do not.
Microsoft is currently dealing with revelations that its upcoming Xbox One console and the attached Kinect camera record all manner of data including video and audio and by agreement share it with the US Government.
Edward Johnson is still living in a Moscow airport after leaking information about the the NSA's 'Prism' system.
Even as I typed that last sentence it occurs to me that this blog could be flagged as suspicious simply because of the phrases used to describe the film.
But the question is how paranoid should we be?
How sensitive should we be about what we post to Facebook, tweet on Twitter, post in forums and blogs, e-mail to friends or include in sign up documents?
There must be a point when the benefits outweigh the risks or the loss of privacy.
After all even before the internet was the preferred method of dealing with companies we thought nothing of mailing in forms filled with our details.
The difference of course is that every little bit of data that we share online can be tied to us to form a greater picture of what we do and who we are than we may have intended.
The comparison that I would draw is that phone books are made readily available to us and they have the names, addresses and phone numbers of millions of people in them.
In printed form they are limited as to what the data can be used for.
If I want to know a number I must know the name of the person or company first.
If that very same phone book existed in digital form I could merely enter a number and find out what name was assigned to it.
The online White and Yellow Page phone books don't allow you to do this but companies like Facebook and Google sure can- they have all of the information in tables ready to be cross referenced
And much, much more on top.
"Terms and Conditions May Apply" is a compelling watch more due to the subject being explored than by its execution.
If nothing else it is a conversation starter and provides enough fascinating material to make it easy to recommend as a watch.
The presentation is largely excellent and I appreciated the constant use of name captioning for even repeated guests.
Some news channels in my own country could learn much from this!
I do have some questions as to why contributions by Barrett Brown- 'unofficial spokesman' for online group Anonymous were not backed up by some history about that group and its often dubious history.
Instead the young, rather stoned (or very tired) looking man is given free reign with his thoughts.
On the whole this is a highly watchable, very interesting film.
Leaving the cinema I was struck by so many ironies.
I watched dozens of smartphones being switched on as the audience left- no doubt with GPS tracking enabled and a host of social apps running.
The vast majority of people entering had used the same devices to wave digital tickets purchased online at the ushers.
The same people I had heard gasp and 'tut-tut' throughout the film were actively participating in the system that had been explored for the last hour and a bit.
Having said that I knew that I would come home later to type up this blog post on services provided by Google linked to Gmail accounts and fed out through friends on Twitter, Facebook and Google +
| Rated | N/A but nothing higher than PG |
| Running Time: | 79 minutes (77 minutes without end credits) |
| Starring: |
| Leigh Bryan | --- Himself |
| Ray Kurzweil | --- Himself |
| Mark Zuckerberg | --- Himself |
| Joe Lipari | --- Himself |
| Max Schrem | --- Himself |
| Christopher Shin | --- Himself |
| Moby | --- Himself |
| Michael Pachter | --- Himself |
| Eric Schmidt | --- Himself |
| Chris Anderson | --- Himself |
| Margaret Atwood | --- Herself |
| Jerome Schwartz | --- Himself |
| Orson Scott Card | --- Himself |
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