We are investing heavily in the digital revolution, and we are doing very well. However, accelerating change may not give us the luxury of thinking and looking at things more closely. When you work and innovate, you don’t have time to think about all the consequences of your actions, so you also need those who have the courage to challenge size and institutions. At the start of every revolution, there are arbiters, opportunists, opportunists, and ideologues who want to move forward at any cost. Then, after the perch has subsided, the more moderate ones come up to describe the exploits of all of the above. Given that we are still in the early decades of the digital revolution, human geography is confusing. However, some people stand out for their actions, either because they founded unicorns, or because they invented a great technological tool, or simply because they exposed weaknesses, bugs, or dark spots in the system.

In the extremely interesting documentary “Scandal! The Wirecard Downing, shown on Netflix, follows a brave journalist’s efforts to expose the Wirecard scandal. Dan McCrum is the man who derailed a super-successful digital age company, Germany’s “unicorn” who even sought to take over Deutsche Bank. Until the moment a journalist begins his report, no one can imagine that behind the showcase of online transactions, luxurious offices, thousands of employees, hooray, there is a well-established, traditional money launderer. Without the perseverance and courage of the journalist, and without the help of the sellers (investors betting on falling stocks), the scam could have continued until today.

No one could have imagined that a well-established money launderer was hiding behind the showcase of online transactions and luxurious offices.

Critical to documenting the report was the assistance of a public interest witness who resembles the most notorious whistleblower of our time, Edward Snowden. In a recent book, The Dark Mirror, Edward Snowden, and America’s Surveillance State (Kastaniotis ed., translated by Marianne Jantzis), Barton Gelman talks about his encounter with Snowden as one of the few reporters who had access to the files leaked by Snowden. Snowden’s story has already been captured in a number of films and books, but here Gelman brings a more personal dimension that highlights the many challenges a professional journalist must overcome to manage such a complex, dangerous and difficult story. The result is a good balancer. It portrays Snowden as a controversial man who may have made a number of difficult and harmful decisions for himself and his country, but has begun a dialogue that could ultimately benefit democracy. Digital surveillance, however sensitive and controversial the issue, must be subject to public scrutiny. Society must ensure that no one can abuse the power granted to them.

Snowden voluntarily decided to disclose state secrets and now lives with the consequences of his act. Andrew “Bunny” Huang, on the other hand, was in no mood to challenge the multinational digital giant’s private power when he tore apart an Xbox video game console in 2001. In The Singularity Group’s “Hacktivist” documentary, which I recently saw at a special online screening, “Bunny” says he just wanted to see how the machine worked. When he posted his exploit online, he received a message from Microsoft asking them to remove the post from their page. As strange as it may sound, the law prohibits the disassembly of digital devices. The documentary clearly takes the side of the “hacktivist” (from hacker and activist) who is now suing the US government in hopes of regaining the right of users to own and use their devices autonomously. After all, in revolutions, many of what appear to be breakthroughs are nothing more than ashes in the eyes. We need the courage and imagination of those who challenge and test the limits of systems, because through them we learn how to rewrite the rules for the benefit of the many.