Tag: TED

Carole Cadwalladr’s Final Column for The Observer

But she hasn’t stopped observing.

A couple of weeks ago I linked to Carol Cadwalladr’s recent return to the TED conference to deliver a speech entitled This Is What A Digital Coup Looks Like. It’s worth a watch if you care about such things. Heck, it should be required reading if you care at all about what’s happening in our digital and non-digital lives. 

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This post is linking to her farewell column in The Observer, the Sunday sister paper to The Guardian and The Guardian Weekly papers in Britain. Like all media outlets it’s been through some things in recent years. The Observer was purchased late in 2024 and like all such transactions that prompted staff layoffs and terminations, including Carole Cadwalladr and a number of her colleagues. You can read all about that on in her post Fuckty bye in How To Survive The Broligarchy. I suggest you do that as well as read her final Observer column It’s Not Too Late To Stop Trump and The Tech Broligarchy From Controlling Our Lives, But We Must Act Now.

I happen to believe she’s fighting the good fight. That last column provides some excellent behind the scenes during her preparation and anxiety leading up to that recent TED speech, as well as some reactions she received while at the conference, including an interchange between her and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, in addition to making the important case she continues to make. 

She’s paying attention and raising alarm bells. We should too. She’s standing in the way. We should too.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. 

Carole Cadwalladr: This Is What A Digital Coup Looks Like

You need to watch and share this.

The subhead above says you need to watch this. I’m repeating that here. You do.

Carole Cadwalladr on stage for there 2025 TED Talk saying we are facing a digital coup.

Carole Cadwalladr tells it like she sees it. More importantly how many of us see it. But she is brave enough to speak it.

In her post announcing the release of this video of her TED Talk this year, she recounts how she knocked the Silicon Valley World off its axis with her 2019 TED Talk implicating Facebook, and Silicon Valley as a whole, for their role in Brexit. She’s back and talking about the ever increasing dangerous threats we’re facing today given how much we’ve already surrendered and those in control of our digital lives have capitulated to those in control of our politics. Or is it the other way around? As she puts it “a digital coup.”

Of course, I think she’s spot on.

I could go on and on, with words describing her thoughts, but your time would be better spent watching and listening.

You should also read her post, Speaking Truth To Tech Gods: I Return To TED.

A big hat tip to Ian Robinson for sharing these links on Mastodon.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.