Leave it to Netflix to make a show on the cutting edge of the digital world. The latest season, which you can binge watch in its entirety on Netflix, featured a few digital plot lines that would be particularly interesting to Silicon Valley and anyone working in the tech industry.

Of course, like any TV or film, there is significant creative license applied to the technology. Several people were probably shouting at their screen, "That's not how it works!" But still, it's interesting to see these digital issues being brought to the forefront in a mainstream television program.

The Social Media Advantage



The new up-and-comer on the political scene is Will Conway, Republican governor of New York. And his secret weapon? Social media.

"Blast! I didn't know we were allowed to tweet!"

For some reason, in the House of Cards universe, Conway stands out as the lone Internet savvy candidate, the only person clever enough to think to use social media. In our world, every politician is doing it. Thanks, Obama!

Of course, that doesn't mean they're doing it well. On House of Cards, Conway is positioned as someone who truly gets social media. He's not just sending out boring Facebook posts nobody reads or letting his intern run his Instagram account. He's taken it to a new level, making everything he does on his phone publicly available. (So he claims. I can't wait for that to blow up in his face.)

Search Engines Know Everything

In the world of House of Cards, there is a search engine that is said to not be one of the big guys like a Google or a Bing, but somehow, even with their low usage, they are able to know everything about everything because of how people are searching.

Digital marketers will know the truth of this. Search engines do know a lot, but we're also aware of the limitations. If a search engine were to give one candidate full access to its search data, it would certainly be a huge advantage that would tell the candidate precisely how to win your vote.

This is another part of what makes Will Conway's campaign so effective. He's best friends with the search engine known as Pollyhop, and seems to have unrestricted access to its user data.

Let Me Pollyhop That For You

Conway's search engine friend is helping to manipulate public sentiment about him. It's suggested in an early episode that Pollyhop controls the search results to show only positive links about the candidate. Yet they didn't go into more details on this. While obviously possible, it would be incredibly reckless behavior and probably illegal.

Still, it did bring up an interesting point about control of information. The truth is that a search engine on par with Duck Duck Go or Lycos probably won't have that much influence. So by claiming that Pollyhop is one of the little guys, the writers killed their own premise. But what they're claiming Pollyhop can do is something that Google, Facebook or Bing certainly could do.

Google is already under fire for possibly giving its own products an unfair advantage in its search rankings. But what if they applied that to their own political ideals? The top contributor to Bernie Sanders is Alphabet Inc., aka Google. And with Google's big push toward being the ultimate hub of election coverage this year, they're certainly positioned to influence public perception on a grand scale. Will they?

The NSA Did It First

While Conway's buddy-buddy relationship with his third tier search engine gives him a nice advantage in the election, sitting President Francis Underwood has a much bigger gun on his hip: The NSA.

Everything that Pollyhop is able to do for Conway, the NSA has already been doing (and more) as part of its hunt for terrorists overseas. All President Underwood has to do is aim it at the American public.

And that's exactly what he does, getting a secret warrant from some kind of secret judge. This would obviously be illegal, using the NSA for campaign data. But it's not like incumbents have never abused their power for political gain in the past.

Data Scientist Is a Thing

A weird thing.

Where Is It Heading?

Our culture has been highly engaged with digital technology for several years now, but it seems that the entertainment industry is only starting to catch up. Shows like Mr. Robot and House of Cards are pushing the envelope and hopefully correcting the atrocities committed on the tech world by films like Swordfish and Skyfall.

But more, I think we're starting to see the everyday effects of technology being reflected in film. It makes me think of how modern horror movies have to go out of their way now to get rid of their characters' cellphones. The Internet has greatly changed how we live our lives, how businesses operate and how governments are run. It is a truth that fiction writers have to grapple with. These new tools the Internet provides us can't be ignored or turned into some silly exaggeration to spur along the plot.

I'm sure there will always be a degree of dumbing it down for mass consumption and dressing it up for entertainment value, but accurately representing technology will make for stronger stories. Technology does impact character motivations and that is why it's important Hollywood have a grasp on the reality of its use.