TED Talks Daily - This is what a digital coup looks like | Carole Cadwalladr

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

"We are watching the collapse of the international order in real time, and this is just the start," says investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr. In a searing talk, she decries the rise of the "broligarchy" — the powerful tech executives who are using their global digital platforms to amass unprecedented geopolitical power, dismantling democracy and enabling authoritarian control across the world. Her rallying cry: resist data harvesting and mass surveillance, and support others in a groundswell of digital disobedience. "You have more power than you think," she says. (This talk contains mature language.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I used to say, I just feel stuck. But then I discovered lifelong learning. It gave me the skills to move up, gain an edge, and prepare for what's next. The University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. Lifelong learning to stay forever unstuck. Support for this episode comes from Airbnb. Every year I travel to Vancouver for the TED conference, a week filled with big ideas, inspiring speakers, and late-night conversations. But while I'm away, my home just sits empty. I've been thinking, why not list it on Airbnb? Hosting could help cover some of my travel costs and maybe even let me stay an extra day in Vancouver to soak in the city's beauty. Instead of rushing to the airport, I could take one more walk along the seawall, grab another amazing meal,

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spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. We are watching the collapse of the international order in real time, and this is just the start. Those words from investigative journalist Carol Kedwallader. In a searing talk that opened this year's TED 2025 conference, she decries the rise of powerful tech executives who are using their global digital platforms to amass unprecedented geopolitical power. The outcome risks dismantling democracy and enabling authoritarian control across the world.

She also has an important message for all of us. You have more power than you think. That's coming up next. I have 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 as a particular set of circumstances, 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. 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 or 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. 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 head fuck. (*Laughter*) 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. that the 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 telling the same lies. We are watching the collapse of the international order in real time, and this is just the start. Coos are like concrete. When they stop moving, they set. It is already later than we think. 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. Some people are calling this oligarchy, but it's actually bigger than that. absolute loyalty. Some people are calling this oligarchy, but it's actually bigger than that. These are global platforms. It's Brolligarchy. (*Laughter*)

(*Applause*) There is an alignment of interests that runs from through Silicon Valley to what is now a coming autocracy. It's a type of power that the world has never seen before. It's always the data. It's the crack cocaine of the world. It's the crack of the world has never seen before. 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. (*Laughter*) When we broke the Cambridge Analytica story

about the harvesting 87 million people's Facebook data, people freaked out, rightly. This is chicken feed compared to that. But it is the data. Which is why it's so important that you start thinking about your private life. The Brolligarchie 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' names. And they kept them in a safe place.

And they kept them in a safe place. And they kept them in a safe place. 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. Woo!

(*Applause*) It may not have been deliberate, but we now have to start acting as if we live in East Germany. And Instagram is the starz. Politics is downstream from culture. So I actually learned this from somebody who I think of as one of the great philosophers of our age. Steve Bannon.

He actually stole it from somebody else. But it's not politicians who have the power. He knows that. It's why he's a podcast bro these days. But culture now is just what's next on your phone. And that's AI. Culture is AI now. And forget the killer robots. If you want to know what the first great AI apocalypse is,

we're already living it. Its total information collapse. And if you take one thing only away from this talk, it's politics is technology now. And that's why everybody in this room, you can't look away. It's why your CEOs have been taken captive and are paraded on TV like hostages. But you, you have a choice. You have a choice. So Trump, he calls the press the enemies of the people,

and he probably doesn't even know that he's quoting Stalin. So what happened to me is a playbook, and it's now coming for all sorts of other people. It was actually a friend of this guy who came after me. It's Nigel Farage. It's a Brexit funder. I'm not going to go super into the details. But 19 press freedom organizations

called the lawsuit against me a slap. That means it's a strategic litigation against public participation. A really long-winded way of saying it's using law as a weapon to shut people up, not just journalists but other public people, too. And it works. I just wanted to tell you about one aspect of the litigation which I found terrifying,

and that was the data harvesting. There's this quote, you may know it, it's Cardinal Rieschler. If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them in which will hang him. In my case, the first forensic searches of my phone and laptop yielded 40,000 pieces of data. It was my messages, my emails,

my voice memos, my personal life. And the whole thing about this, the attack which came for me, it's really personal, because the thing about this litigation is only one part of the playbook. It was also this sort of massive online campaign of abuse, which is just day after day after day after day. Because my most unforgivable crime was reporting while female.

It was a digital witch-burning. And I believe that this man came after me personally, not because of the Guardian and not Ted. It was because I looked like the weakest link. But he was wrong. And... (*Applause*) Thirty thousand people rose up to support me.

They contributed almost a million pounds to a legal defense fund, because they saw a bully trying to crush me and they would not let it stand. And it always makes me emotional when I think about that. This whole talk is actually my gratitude towards everybody who did that. But it's also why I know about what we have to do next. You know, Trump is suing news organizations, and every day they're settling.

These are big corporates with corporate interests. Not everybody can stand up to power, but there are people who are doing it, and we can support them. We have to have each other's backs right now, because we are the cavalry now. You know, this is really important to me, but I spoke to a UK libel lawyer before this talk.

I want to say that there is an awful lot of facts set down in a high court judgment, and we're actually taking the case now to the European Court of Human Rights. We're testing the UK on its laws around freedom of expression. So look after facts. You'll miss them when they've gone. This is way back machine. Give them money.

They're trying to preserve the internet as it's being deleted day by day. (*Applause*) History is our best chance of getting out of this. You know, you probably know this phrase, do not obey in advance. That's Tim Snyder, who's a historian of authoritarianism. We now are in techno-authoritarianism. We have to learn how to digitally disobey.

That can be as simple as the drop-down box. Don't accept the cookies. Don't give your real name. Download Signal, the encrypted messaging app. Don't accept the cookies, don't give your real name, download Signal, the encrypted messaging app, don't bomb Yemen, don't add the editor of The Atlantic to your group chats. (*Laughter*) Oh, don't experiment on children.

You know, social malls change. We don't send children down coal mines anymore. And in years to come, allowing your child to be data-harvested from birth You know, social mores change. We don't send children down coal mines anymore. And in years to come, allowing your child to be data-harvested from birth will be considered child abuse. You didn't know, but now you do.

Privacy is power. And we have more of it than we think. I had this little epiphany yesterday, in which I realized actually the moments when I felt most powerless were the moments that I felt I was actually most powerful. It was because my journalism had impact. They want us to feel powerless. That's the plan.

There is so much, though, that we can learn from people who've been through this before. Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian government, to feel powerless. That's the plan. There is so much, though, that we can learn from people who've been through this before. Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, he always talked about a beautiful Russia of the future. He painted a vision. There is a beautiful internet of the future, free from corporate capture and data tracking. We can build it.

It is going to take a movement. But we can learn from movements that there have been before us. This is my colleagues and I on strike in December, because my news organization, The Guardian, decided to sell our corner of it, the Observer, the Sunday title. And it was a battle we really didn't need at this time, and we didn't actually win.

But, you know, you can't win every battle, but you definitely won't win if you don't fight. (*Applause*) So I want to leave you with this. This is ChatGPT writing a TED Talk in the style of Carol Cadwalader. And it is creepily plausible. But what it doesn't know,

because AI is actually as dumb as a rock, is that I am going to turn to Sam Altman and say that this does not belong to you. ChatGPT has been trained on my IP, my labor, my personal data. my personal data. And I did not consent.

You know, The Guardian has effectively got rid of more than 100 journalists. We actually leave the building next week. And shortly afterwards, it signed a syndication deal with OpenAI. Or as I think of it, it's a new kind of syndication deal. and then they were going to start doing it next week. And shortly afterwards, it signed a syndication deal with OpenAI. Or as I think of it,

it married its rapist. But I do not consent. And while we still have copyright laws in my country, the UK government is trying to tear them up at the moment in order to suck up to Silicon Valley and Trump. But while we have them, use them. Because what is happening to my industry is happening to yours, too. And it's more than theft. It's a violation.

Data rights are human rights. (*Applause*) In 2019, I came here, and I called out the gods of Silicon Valley. I was wrong. Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, you are not gods. You are men, and you are careless.

(*Applause*) You think that by allying yourself with an autocrat, you will be protected. That's not how history works. It's not even how oligarchy works. This is Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was an oligarch until he was sent to Siberia, to prison for 10 years after Putin tired of him.

You are sucking up to a tyrant You are sucking up to a tyrant who is trying to destroy the laws who made your businesses possible. You're collaborators. You're complicit in a regime of fear and cruelty. But the rest of us, we all here, we have a choice. I chose to come back to TED because I'm reclaiming my story, my words. We are not powerless. The 30,000 people who supported me proved that.

We are not powerless. Because we know who we are, and we know what we stand for. And my question to Silicon Valley is, do you? Do you? Do you? Do you?

Do you? Do you? Do you? because we know who we are and we know what we stand for. And my question to Silicon Valley is, do you? Thank you. That was Carol Cadwallader speaking at TED 2025. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curationguidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team,

Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tansika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balarezzo. I'm Elise Huw. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. This episode is sponsored by Edward Jones.

You know, as I talk about these big ideas that shape our world, I sometimes think about the decisions that have impact on our daily lives, like financial decisions. That's where Edward Jones comes in. Earning money is great, but true fulfillment in life isn't just about growing your wealth. It's about using your resources to achieve your personal goals. And Edward Jones gets this. Their advisors take time to understand you as an individual. They build trusted relationships to help you develop strategies that align with your unique goals. What's special about Edward Jones is their holistic approach. They see

financial health as a key part of overall wellness, just as important as physical or mental well-being. It's not about chasing dollars, it's about finding balance and perspective in your financial life. That's something anyone should be able to achieve. Ready to approach your finances with a fresh perspective? Learn more at edwardjones.ca. Money's a thing, but it's not everything. Move up, move beyond, gain that edge, drive my curiosity, prepare me for what is inevitably next. The University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, lifelong learning to stay forever unstuck.

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