Critically-acclaimed HBO documentaries released ahead of US elections

A lot has happened lately especially in the US where we’ve seen some truly appalling scenes. What’s even more interesting is this is all happening ahead of their next elections. Giving us a view on some of the top issues including fake news, hacking and more is Showmax who have just released three HBO documentaries each very highly rated. Together they paint a deeply disturbing portrait of America today. They are:

Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections

Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections reveals the extent of vulnerabilities in America’s voting systems and the risks they pose to democracy. From the team behind HBO’s 2006 Emmy-nominated documentary Hacking Democracy, Kill Chain follows Finnish hacker and cyber security expert Harri Hursti as he travels across the U.S. to show how American election systems remain dangerously unprotected.

Hursti has a long history of drawing attention to the vulnerabilities of election technology. In 2005, he hacked into a widely used voting machine in Florida. Despite widespread public outrage, the same machine is slated for use in many states in the 2020 election.

As Time says, “This documentary will show you just how fragile our democracy really Is… If you don’t want to know how easy it is for a canny individual—or a malicious state actor—to hack into the electronic voting technology used in the U.S., don’t watch Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections.”

After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News

In After Truth: Disinformation And The Cost Of Fake News, directed by Emmy nominee Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside The New York Times), the victims of disinformation campaigns humanise the danger of ‘fake news.’

For example, James Alefantis talks us through the impact of Reddit-fueled conjecture that his family pizza restaurant in Washington DC hosted a child pornography ring with links to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The claim not only led to his staff receiving regular death threats but also an armed gunman bursting into the restaurant looking for proof of the crimes. In 2019, the FBI designated conspiracy theories like ‘Pizzagate’ as a new domestic terrorism threat.

The HBO documentary also talks to Aaron Rich, brother of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, who was killed in an attempted robbery but whose murder was linked online to the leak of Hillary Clinton’s emails to WikiLeaks – despite overwhelming proof that the Russians were behind the hacked server and leak, and a lack of any evidence that his murder was in any way connected. After Truth says the assassination theory was fueled by operatives like Jack Burkman and Jerome Corsi – both interviewed in the documentary – and broadcast on Fox News and Sean Hannity’s prime time show.

The Scheme

The HBO Sports documentary The Scheme chronicles an unprecedented two-year undercover FBI investigation into college basketball corruption that came to a dramatic climax on 26 September 2017, when Adidas executives and assistant coaches at ‘amateur’ major college programmes were arrested in a pay-for-play scheme.

“This story is surprising in every way imaginable and goes far beyond the limits of a college recruiting scandal,” says director Pat Kondelis, whose 2017 account of the Baylor University basketball scandal, Disgraced, won the Emmy for Outstanding Sports Documentary.

Or as CNN put it, “The Scheme makes college basketball look bad, and the FBI look worse… It’s a riveting, meticulously detailed guide to a system that seemingly invites rule breaking at every turn.”

Get your snacks and everything else you need, kickback and enjoy all three because all look like quite the intriguing watch. Remember, only on Showmax.

Post Views: 0

#After Truth #HBO #The Scheme

Posted By

Thabiso Moloi

With many, many years of PR, digital & influencer marketing work under his belt, Thabiso has worked on a great number of technology, business and consumer brands. In addition, he has become obsessed with most things under the sun including music, series, sports, movies etc which he now regularly writes about. You can find him on Twitter: @Thabz_14