This Is What a Digital Coup Looks Like | Carole Cadwalladr | TED

Carole Cadwalladr warns that we are in the midst of a digital coup—a stealth authoritarian takeover powered by technology, AI, surveillance capitalism, and unregulated data collection. She declares it’s time to name and fight it—because democracy itself is on the line.

“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 details a fast-moving technological coup and the rise of the “broligarchy”: an unprecedentedly powerful class of tech executives (like Elon Musk) who are complicit in dismantling democracy and enabling authoritarian control across the world. She shares a guide on how to digitally disobey in this age of runaway corporate power, data harvesting and mass surveillance — and reminds you that you have more power than you think.
(Recorded at TED2025 on April 8, 2025)

# tactiq.io free youtube transcript
# This Is What a Digital Coup Looks Like | Carole Cadwalladr | TED
# https://www.youtube.com/watch/TZOoT8AbkNE

00:00:04.201 I’ve been feeling a lot of panicand fear about this talk.
00:00:11.509 And not just for the normal reasonsof public speaking,
00:00:14.645 although that’s there, too.
00:00:16.814 But it’s also because I wantto say something meaningful,
00:00:21.318 and I’ve been overwhelmed by the enormity
00:00:24.422 of what is happening right now.
00:00:27.758 And there’s a particularset of circumstances
00:00:30.327 which have also been feedinginto my confusion and denial.
00:00:36.467 And that is because the last timethat I stood on this stage,
00:00:41.405 it led to a three-year legal battle,
00:00:45.409 culminated in London’s High Court,
00:00:49.346 in which it feltlike I was on trial for my life,
00:00:52.783 because I was.
00:00:54.919 My career, my reputation, my finances,
00:00:57.621 even my home was on the line.
00:01:01.225 All because I came here
00:01:04.495 to warn you
00:01:05.963 that I didn’t think democracywas going to survive the technology
00:01:10.000 that you’re building,
00:01:11.202 however incredible it is.
00:01:13.704 In fact, I was the personwho almost didn’t survive,
00:01:17.775 and pretty much everythingI was warning about is now coming true.
00:01:24.215 I can’t sugarcoat it.
00:01:26.183 It’s a bit of a headfuck.
00:01:27.852 (Laughter)
00:01:30.287 I have a lot of emotionsabout coming here.
00:01:33.524 And TED, also, I suspect,is feeling them too.
00:01:38.329 But what actuallyI finally realized yesterday
00:01:41.665 is that the denial and the confusionthat I’ve been feeling
00:01:44.702 is maybe what you’re feeling, too.
00:01:48.239 I felt powerless for a really long time.
00:01:51.742 So if that’s whatyou’re feeling, I get it.
00:01:55.412 But we have to act now.
00:01:59.583 My alarm system is ringing again.
00:02:05.256 There are things that we can do.
00:02:08.826 In my case, I survived.
00:02:11.295 And you will too.
00:02:12.663 But it’s by learning how to fight back.
00:02:16.400 This is my guide,
00:02:18.569 and it has to start with naming it.
00:02:24.074 It’s a coup.
00:02:26.143 I know you probably don’t wantto hear that, and especially here,
00:02:29.246 but we can’t fight it if we can’t see it.
00:02:31.215 And we can’t see it if we don’t name it.
00:02:34.118 (Applause)
00:02:41.692 The Russian and American presidentsare now speaking the same words.
00:02:46.764 They are telling the same lies.
00:02:49.633 We are watching the collapseof the international order in real time.
00:02:55.072 And this is just the start.
00:02:58.842 Coups are like concrete.
00:03:00.578 When they stop moving, they set.
00:03:03.881 It is already later than we think.
00:03:07.218 This image, some of youin this room might know these people.
00:03:10.988 I call it tech bros in hostage situations.
00:03:13.991 It’s a message to you.
00:03:15.893 This is Putin’s playbook.
00:03:19.129 He allows a business eliteto make untold riches
00:03:22.499 in exchange for absolute loyalty.
00:03:26.637 Some people are calling this oligarchy,
00:03:29.340 but it’s actually bigger than that.
00:03:32.643 These are global platforms.
00:03:36.547 It’s broligarchy.
00:03:38.382 [Tech bros + oligarchy = broligarchy]
00:03:40.484 (Laughter and murmuring)
00:03:42.886 (Applause)
00:03:48.492 There is an alignment of interests
00:03:52.029 that runs through Silicon Valley
00:03:55.699 to what is now a coming autocracy.
00:04:01.538 It’s a type of power that the worldhas never seen before.
00:04:07.144 [Follow the data]
00:04:09.580 It’s always the data.
00:04:12.149 It’s the crack cocaine of Silicon Valley.
00:04:15.753 You know, the first thingthat Elon Musk did
00:04:18.122 was to send his cyber troopsinto the US Treasury
00:04:21.659 to get access to the data.
00:04:23.394 That is not a coincidence.
00:04:24.762 It’s a hack.
00:04:26.397 That data is now feeding AIsthat are choosing who to sack
00:04:30.434 and who to replace —
00:04:31.935 Sorry — eliminate fraud and waste.
00:04:34.705 (Laughter)
00:04:36.640 When we broke the Cambridge Analytica story
00:04:39.209 about the harvesting [of]87 million people’s Facebook data,
00:04:43.213 people freaked out, rightly.
00:04:46.550 [That] is chicken feed compared to [this].
00:04:50.287 But it is the blueprint.
00:04:53.290 It’s always the data.
00:04:56.460 Which is why it’s so important
00:04:58.195 that you start thinkingabout your private life.
00:05:01.031 The broligarchy doesn’twant you to have one.
00:05:03.500 This is the old headquartersof the East German secret police.
00:05:09.373 They kept detailed fileson almost one in three of their citizens.
00:05:15.479 That is nothing comparedto what Google has
00:05:19.416 on every single one of us,
00:05:21.418 and hundreds of other companies.
00:05:25.456 The entire business modelof Silicon Valley is surveillance.
00:05:30.894 It harvests our datain order to sell us stuff.
00:05:35.432 We are already living insidethe architecture of totalitarianism.
00:05:40.571 (Cheers)
00:05:42.072 (Applause)
00:05:44.308 It may not have been deliberate,
00:05:48.379 but we now have to start actingas if we live in East Germany,
00:05:53.550 and Instagram is the Stasi.
00:05:58.856 Politics is downstream from culture.
00:06:01.825 So I actually learned this from somebody
00:06:05.229 who I think of as one of the greatphilosophers of our age,
00:06:09.233 Steve Bannon.
00:06:10.401 (Laughter)
00:06:11.835 He actually stole it from somebody else.
00:06:15.873 But it’s not politicianswho have the power.
00:06:20.010 He knows that.
00:06:21.278 It’s why he’s a podcast bro, these days.
00:06:25.649 But culture now is justwhat’s next on your phone.
00:06:30.821 And that’s AI.
00:06:32.322 Culture is AI now.
00:06:35.659 And forget the killer robots.
00:06:37.628 If you want to know whatthe first great AI apocalypse is,
00:06:42.900 we’re already living it.
00:06:44.568 It’s total information collapse.
00:06:48.539 And if you take one thingonly away from this talk,
00:06:53.010 it’s politics is technology now.
00:06:57.214 And that’s why everybody in this room,you can’t look away.
00:07:01.618 It’s why your CEOs have been taken captive
00:07:04.488 and are paraded on TV like hostages.
00:07:08.525 But you, you have a choice.
00:07:13.864 So Trump, he calls the pressthe enemies of the people.
00:07:17.367 And he probably doesn’t even knowthat he’s quoting Stalin.
00:07:22.039 So what happened to me is a playbook,
00:07:25.843 and it’s now comingfor all sorts of other people.
00:07:30.481 It was actually a friend of this guywho came after me.
00:07:34.017 This is Nigel Farage.
00:07:35.252 He’s a Brexit funder.
00:07:36.653 I’m not going to go superinto the details.
00:07:42.893 But 19 press-freedom organizations
00:07:47.464 called the lawsuit against me a SLAPP.
00:07:50.467 That means it’s a StrategicLitigation Against Public Participation.
00:07:56.106 A really long-winded way of saying
00:07:58.008 it’s using law as a weaponto shut people up.
00:08:01.378 Not just journalists,but other public people, too.
00:08:03.981 And it works.
00:08:06.216 I just wanted to tell youabout one aspect of the litigation,
00:08:09.520 which I found terrifying.
00:08:11.555 And that was the data harvesting.
00:08:14.925 There’s this quote you may know,it’s Cardinal Richelieu,
00:08:17.995 “If you give me six lines
00:08:19.429 written by the handof the most honest of men,
00:08:22.165 I will find somethingin them which will hang him.”
00:08:26.737 In my case,
00:08:28.305 the first forensic searchesof my phone and laptop
00:08:31.308 yielded 40,000 pieces of data.
00:08:35.445 It was my messages, my emails,
00:08:38.815 my voice memos, my personal life.
00:08:42.719 And the whole thing about this,
00:08:45.088 the attack which came for me,was really personal.
00:08:48.025 Because the thing about this litigationis only one part of the playbook.
00:08:53.330 It was also this sort of massiveonline campaign of abuse,
00:08:58.402 which is just day after day,
00:09:02.072 after day, after day.
00:09:04.942 Because my most unforgivablecrime was reporting while female.
00:09:11.882 It was a digital witch burning.
00:09:16.687 And I believe that this man cameafter me personally,
00:09:20.557 not at “The Guardian” and not TED,
00:09:22.559 it was because I lookedlike the weakest link.
00:09:26.330 But he was wrong.
00:09:29.266 (Cheers and applause)
00:09:37.074 30,000 people rose up to support me.
00:09:41.411 They contributed almosta million pounds to a legal defense fund.
00:09:46.450 Because they saw a bullytrying to crush me,
00:09:49.519 and they would not let it stand.
00:09:53.590 And it always makes meemotional when I think about that.
00:09:57.294 I just heard somebody was saying,the camera person,
00:09:59.763 I don’t know where they are, contributed.
00:10:05.369 This whole talk is actually my gratitudetowards everybody who did that.
00:10:11.575 But it’s also why I knowabout what we have to do next.
00:10:15.579 You know, Trump is suingnews organizations,
00:10:17.681 and every day they’re settling.
00:10:19.249 These are big corporateswith corporate interests.
00:10:22.119 Not everybody can stand up to power,
00:10:24.087 but there are people who are doing it,and we can support them.
00:10:29.026 We have to haveeach other’s backs right now.
00:10:32.129 Because we are the cavalry now.
00:10:35.932 You know, this is really important to me,
00:10:37.968 but I spoke to a UK libel lawyerbefore this talk.
00:10:42.172 I want to say that there isan awful lot of facts set down
00:10:46.610 in a High Court judgment,
00:10:49.279 and we’re actually taking the case nowto the European Court of Human Rights.
00:10:53.350 We’re testing the UK on its lawsaround freedom of expression.
00:10:59.322 So look after facts.
00:11:00.557 You’ll miss them when they’ve gone.
00:11:02.259 This is Wayback Machine.
00:11:03.493 Give them money,
00:11:04.661 they’re trying to preserve the internetas it’s being deleted day by day.
00:11:08.198 (Applause)
00:11:12.602 History is our best chanceof getting out of this.
00:11:16.573 You know, you probably know this phrase,
00:11:18.508 “Do not obey in advance.”
00:11:20.410 That’s Tim Snyder, who’s a historianof authoritarianism.
00:11:23.914 We now are in techno-authoritarianism.
00:11:26.483 We have to learn how to digitally disobey.
00:11:29.586 That can be as simpleas the dropdown box.
00:11:32.789 Don’t accept the cookies,
00:11:34.558 don’t give your real name,
00:11:36.426 download Signal,the encrypted messaging app.
00:11:39.696 Don’t bomb Yemen,
00:11:40.931 don’t add the editorof “The Atlantic” to your group chats.
00:11:44.668 (Laughter)
00:11:49.639 Don’t experiment on children.
00:11:52.075 You know, social mores change.
00:11:53.643 We don’t send childrendown coal mines anymore.
00:11:56.980 And in years to come,
00:11:58.215 allowing your child to bedata-harvested from birth
00:12:02.052 will be considered child abuse.
00:12:05.122 You didn’t know, but now you do.
00:12:09.292 Privacy is power.
00:12:14.364 And we have more of it than we think.
00:12:17.267 I had this little epiphany yesterdayin which I realized, actually,
00:12:20.937 the moments when I felt most powerless
00:12:23.006 were the moments that I feltI was actually most powerful.
00:12:27.010 It was because my journalism had impact.
00:12:31.081 They want us to feel powerless.
00:12:32.949 That’s the plan.
00:12:34.618 There is so much, though,
00:12:35.852 that we can learn from peoplewho’ve been through this before.
00:12:39.422 Alexei Navalny,
00:12:40.924 the leader of the Russian opposition,
00:12:42.926 he always talked about a beautifulRussia of the future.
00:12:46.663 He painted a vision.
00:12:48.899 There is a beautifulinternet of the future,
00:12:53.069 free from corporate captureand data tracking.
00:12:57.407 We can build it.
00:12:59.943 It is going to take a movement.
00:13:02.546 But we can learn from movementsthat there have been before us.
00:13:07.417 This is my colleagues and Ion strike in December
00:13:11.655 because my newsorganization, “The Guardian,”
00:13:14.858 decided to sell our corner of it,“The Observer,” the Sunday title.
00:13:20.463 And it was a battle we reallydidn’t need at this time,
00:13:23.733 and we didn’t actually win,
00:13:25.802 but you know, you can’t win every battle.
00:13:30.207 But you definitely won’t winif you don’t fight.
00:13:33.844 (Applause)
00:13:38.849 So I want to leave you with this.
00:13:42.219 This is ChatGPT
00:13:45.956 writing a TED Talkin the style of Carole Cadwalladr.
00:13:51.828 And it is creepily plausible.
00:13:55.365 But what it doesn’t know,
00:13:56.600 because AI is actually as dumb as a rock,
00:14:00.036 is that I am going to turn to Sam Altman,
00:14:03.139 who is coming here, a TED speaker,
00:14:06.343 and say that this does not belong to you.
00:14:11.314 ChatGPT has been trained on my IP,
00:14:15.785 my labor, my personal data.
00:14:18.889 (Applause and cheers)
00:14:24.494 And I did not consent.
00:14:28.932 You know, “The Guardian”has effectively got rid
00:14:31.601 of more than 100 journalists.
00:14:33.536 We actually leave the building next week.
00:14:37.173 And shortly afterwards,
00:14:38.675 it signed a syndication deal with OpenAI.
00:14:43.446 Or, as I think of it,
00:14:45.382 it married its rapist.
00:14:49.853 But I do not consent.
00:14:52.222 And while we still havecopyright laws in my country,
00:14:55.926 UK government is tryingto tear them up at the moment
00:14:58.962 in order to suck upto Silicon Valley and Trump.
00:15:01.898 But while we have them, use them.
00:15:04.301 Because what is happening to my industry
00:15:07.037 is happening to yours, too.
00:15:09.506 And it’s more than theft.
00:15:11.775 It’s a violation.
00:15:13.777 Data rights are human rights.
00:15:18.748 (Applause)
00:15:23.954 In 2019,
00:15:25.722 I came here, and I called outthe gods of Silicon Valley.
00:15:31.895 I was wrong.
00:15:34.230 Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk,
00:15:39.402 you are not gods.
00:15:41.705 You are men, and you are careless.
00:15:45.542 (Applause and cheers)
00:15:53.450 You think that by allyingyourself with an autocrat
00:15:57.554 you will be protected.
00:15:59.656 That’s not how history works.
00:16:01.624 It’s not even how oligarchy works.
00:16:04.060 This is Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
00:16:06.229 He was an oligarchuntil he was sent to Siberia,
00:16:10.033 to prison for 10 years,
00:16:12.135 after Putin tired of him.
00:16:15.372 You are sucking up to a tyrant …
00:16:20.577 who is trying to destroy the laws
00:16:22.712 who made your businesses possible.
00:16:26.716 You are collaborators.
00:16:29.819 You are complicit in a regimeof fear and cruelty.
00:16:36.259 But the rest of us,
00:16:38.028 we all here, we have a choice.
00:16:43.767 I chose to come back to TED
00:16:47.237 because I’m reclaiming my story, my words.
00:16:52.675 (Cheers and applause)
00:17:03.553 We are not powerless.
00:17:07.924 The 30,000 people who supported me
00:17:11.861 proved that — we are not powerless.
00:17:15.999 Because we know who we are,and we know what we stand for.
00:17:20.502 And my question to Silicon Valley is,
00:17:23.973 do you?
00:17:26.810 Thank you.
00:17:28.011 (Cheers and applause)