Watch Netflix’s Black Mirror Season 6 official trailer
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from the Black Mirror season six episode Joan Is Awful
Cult dystopian sci-fi series Black Mirror came back this week on Netflix for another season of terrifying tales involving tech paranoia.
The sixth outing of the Charlie Brooker speculative anthology series has been lauded by critics as five brand new episodes dropped on the streaming service, starting off the opener Joan Is Awful.
Starring Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek and Michael Cera, the story follows a woman called Joan who discovers her life has been turned into a prestige drama series, – and The Daily Express US says it might not be that far from reality.
Joan (played by Murphy) is horrified to find out that she has signed away the rights to her life without realising it, which allows fictional Netflix parody Streamberry to turn her life into its next bingeable boxset, Joan Is Awful.
Moreover, Streamberry acquires the rights to use Hayek’s likeness for the show without the actress actually having to star in it.
Joan is told Streamberry can turn any of its subscribers’ lives into a TV show if they’d agreed to its voluminous terms and conditions without bothering to read through the small print.
The episode serves as a modern-day parable warning viewers to read the fine print before signing away their lives and privacy to big corporations.
Speaking to The Daily Express US, data privacy expert Gaël Duval said: “It’s everyone’s worst nightmare, to find the intricate details of their lives observed and streamed for the world to watch and judge, and yet our lives are documented in such a way that makes this possible.”
“Joan is Awful is so uncomfortable to watch because, although some parts of the plot (church scene and multiverse concept) are exaggerated for our entertainment, it feels plausible. When you ponder, ‘Could my phone hold all this information about me?’ The answer is yes – it holds most if not all of your secrets.”
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Duval says people are already “trading off their own privacy in return for convenience”, pointing out that Google can access information from other apps if given permission to do so.
The prospect of someone having their life depicted on screen after signing away their data rights and privacy isn’t seen as too far-fetched as it seems.
The software developer and CEO of Murena said: “Many people also don’t realise that tracking happens across all your devices, which enables big tech companies to build a very accurate picture of someone’s life if they so wished.
“Combined with AI this could be very powerful and, ethics aside, it isn’t too much of a stretch that such information could be used for the content of a TV show.
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“Although, I don’t think we are quite there in streaming giants being able to create multiverses from such information! I also don’t think any Hollywood actor would sign away license to their face being used so completely.”
Moreover, he said there would be “huge ethical implications” in making a show about someone’s life but the big thing he highlighted was it “could happen to anyone”.
Duval praised Black Mirror for being “outrageously dystopian” while managing to tow the “line of believable”.
Adding: “The power big tech has over society is a recurrent theme throughout the series, because deep down most people are uneasy with just how much access and influence these companies have over our lives.”
Murena builds smartphones that use a Google-free version of Android.
The company has also created an alternative non-profit, open-source app store called App Lounge, which assigns all apps a privacy score based on their trackers and details what information they collect about individuals allowing people to learn more about data harvesting.
Black Mirror season 6 is streaming on Netflix now
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