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Data Brokers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

LastWeekTonight · 9.7M views · 2022-04-11 · 25:10

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Overview

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment explains how data brokers collect and sell personal information, including a stunt in which his team bought data to identify members of Congress.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as an accessible overview of the data broker industry in privacy discussions.

Recommended by 5 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2022–2024

Topics

Privacy, surveillance & cybercrimeMedia, journalism & propaganda
Search by tags
data brokersprivacyjohn oliversurveillancepersonal data

What people said

roneoo · 2022-10 · Strong recommendation

To get an overview of these (toxic IMHO) companies, I strongly recommend this episode of Last Week Tonight: [VIDEO]

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praveenhm · 2022-04 · Strong recommendation

Removing from google doesn't go far enough, the big culprit is the data broker. Displaying your age, is the biggest worry, among your friends circle. John oliver recently made a late night show on data brokers, threatening the congress members, must watch for anyone. [VIDEO]

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ethbr1 · 2024-03 · Recommendation

John Oliver may be relevant to your interests: [VIDEO] >> "I am sorry to disappoint you; we are not going to do that." >> "Why would we? When we have already done it."

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Sources

Video by LastWeekTonight, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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