The Social Dilemma: How attention extraction
destroys truth (for social media users)
Stanford campus 2018
Netflix now offers the documentary 'The Social
Dilemma', directed by Jeff Orlowski, moving in on the harms that modern social
media have done to democratic societies given the inability of the masses to
use them properly. The movie sounds like
a logical consequence of 'The Social Network' (2010).
At issue is the business model of 'attention
extraction', whereby social media companies make their profits by surveillance
of user viewing and clicking habits and showing them pages that are the most
likely to make them see the ads that corporations have paid for. The end result is 'average joe' people get
distorted versions of truth, and instead have their existing social prejudices
reinforced. At one point, author Soshanna Zuboff (Surveillance
Capitalism, Jan. 25, 2020)
says this business model should be outlawed, just as organ
selling is outlawed.
The film gives a striking example of Myanmar, were cell phones are sold preloaded with Facebook accounts,
and where Facebook becomes their only source of information, making it easy for
dictators to manipulate the masses and oppress minorities.
The central real-life character is the handsome
Tristan Harris, now head of the Center for Humane Technology (not to be
confused with the Institute for Humane Studies and George Mason
University). When an engineer at Google,
he wrote a paper on the business model that got a lot of attention (not sure
when), and did not result in the disaster that James
Damore's did (James deserves a film, by the way) but that gradually died, even
if it got a lot of reaction at once.
Harris is also shown in a lot of public speaking
engagements. Other speakers include
Justin Rosenstein, Chris Grundy, and Aza Raskin. There is a fictitious teen character Ben
(Skyler Gisondo) who seems to be drifting toward a
catastrophe with extremism but then pulls away.
Classical modern music composer Jaron Lanier ('You Are
Not a Gadget') often appears.
Mark Zuckerberg is quoted a couple times, with blase
answers like more AI.
In the earliest days of the web, people mainly used
flat websites and blogs, and did not manipulate what people see according to
behavior, although the likelihood of their being found by free search engines
is affected by how the search engines interpret their behaviors. That is how I build my own 'reputation' with
the content of my own 'do ask do tell' books in the earlier days. That too can become problematic with time,
when self-funded, because speech like this can become covertly influential
without being accounted for (which used to be perceived as a campaign finance
reform issue).
The film notes that social media does seem to
interfere with some teens' socialization.
It says some have no interest in dating or in adult skills or
independence (like driving). In younger
people I see online (like YouTube channels) I don't see that. But there is a
huge number of people with low self-esteem in this competitive world that
probably do have problems and are driven to social or political extremism (the
film cover the Comet Ping Pong incident, and later
mentions Charlottesville and extremism in France and elsewhere in Europe). Other people, like myself, may tend to have
less interesting in 'bonding' with people who have real needs.
A Sundance official selection in 2020.