Arthur Rambo: an author is sank
by his earlier hateful Twitter persona (Fr: Lesdeuxmagots)
I am not able to get to FilmfestDC
in person this year because of conflicts, but some of the Streaming opened up
early this morning, and I watched a particularly relevant (to me) film 'Arthur
Rambo' (I'll blogger maledetto), a French language
film by Laurent Cantet about the dangers of social
media when posts stay out there forever.
(Note: FilmfestDV will remember your logon
from previous years but probably make you change your password.)
Karim F. (Rabah Nait Oufella) is a young Muslim author who has just gotten
published with a big new book on immigration to Europe. The film had been completed before the
Ukraine war started, but the latter would only make the setup even more
relevant. Karim and his family
apparently come from Algeria. It is noteworthy that Karim 'looks white'.
As book publicity starts, Karim's past online behavior
comes to light, as his social or political enemies unearth the myriad of tweets
he had written as a teenager under the handle 'Arthur Rambo'. The tweets attacked everyone, with
homophobia, anti-Semitism, racism, and sometimes even 'Islamophobia'. As the film develops, Karim eventually claims
that this was an experiment being a persona just to attract followers, not
intended to be taken literally. But
especially on the anti-Semitic front the outrage continues (mention of 'Je Suis
Charlie').
In time Karim must deal with both his publisher and
then his own family and girl friend.
The problem in social media now is the way algorithms
raise the visibility of tribally provocative content exponentially, whereas my
own style (depending on search engines, in the late 1900s and early 2000s)
encouraged 'passive' fame and influence, which creates its own panoply of
ethical problems but which grows more linearly and
quietly, often unnoticed. Karim's
problems definitely come from the former.
In the specific film, however, it seems that these
tweets would have broken the 'Twitter Rules' and his account would have been
suspended. They (many examples are quoted in the film with screenshots) would
have been seen as 'hate speech' attacking marginalized groups. Maybe these tweets came from the very early
days of Twitter and those were not removed.
By the way, it is looking like Elon Musk is indeed making his move to
acquire Twitter (NY Times). Some
prominent users have said they will remove their accounts if he takes
over. I personally doubt Musk will
remove all rules, but he probably would let Donald Trump back on!
I've added a video where Jonathan Haidt discusses the
problems of modern social media, especially in 2009 when modern algorithms
(likes, follows) started to develop. He says that by 2014 there were enough
'fragile' college freshmen (and women and 'they') on campuses that professors
were afraid of them (think about Evergreen in 2017 and Bret Weinstein).
Name: 'Arthur Rambo'
Director, writer: Laurent
Cantet
Released: 2022
Format: 2.35:1 (in French, subtitles)
When and how viewed:
FilmfestDC, 2022/4/25, streaming. $13
Length: 88
Rating: NA
Companies: Memento
Stars: ****_
(Originally posted: Monday, April 25, 2022 at 10:45 AN EDT)