The Social Dilemma
What do folks in Google and Facebook (and others too) think about the recent Netflix documentary called The Social Dilemma? Personally, I think it's very accurate in that these platforms are doing more harm than good and it's a problem stemmed by many factors, one of the biggest being the need for publicly traded corporations to always grow. What does it mean for people working in this industry knowing that you are working on something that potentially has such far-reaching consequences on the societies we live in? #thoughtprovoking #discussion P.S. This was not posted to start any sort of finger-pointing.
It’s a worry for me. It’s one thing I don’t like. I particularly hate the “engagement“ maximization, but we sell ads and that’s what sustain the business as it is right now.
Personally I don’t think it’s the engagement maximization that is worrying. TV channels strive for the same thing. What’s more worrying is social media’s impact on the social fabric and interpersonal relationships.
But engagement is at the root of those issues, since maximizing it means giving people things that they immediately want, even if it’s bad, incorrect, or divisive. TV and other media has done the same thing but the issue is that social media is multiple times more effective.
1. Users need to understand that there's an actual cost running the services they are using. 2. Users need to choose pay to use services over ads based services.
Yes I agree, the better model would be for people to pay for these services. I would happily take a yearly subscription for Google services. The problem is with the lack of transparency .. Google/Fb and similar ad heavy businesses are not very transparent on their activities.
I have youtube premium but my attention is still dragged into rabbit holes and it's clearly still addictive
My friend on Friday suggested me to watch this documentary, we were chatting over slack. Today morning Netflix suggested this documentary. So i watched it. After watching Now I am thinking, was that my choice or Netflix ai.
Netflix suggestions are crap, don't worry. They recommended Social dilemma for everyone, lol.
Ad is about showing you a stuff you might or might not need, and making you want to buy it. So if you call that mind controlling, sure all those tech companies are controlling your mind.
Controlling your mind comes from manipulation of the feed that you see for maximum engagement. If they are sending some vulnerable people on a rabbit hole of conspiracy theory recommended videos, then it is controlling one's mind in a way.
I saw first 15min and found it BS. The engineer who talks about how he shared this exciting idea in Google which went up to ceo and no one did anything. Guess how any of the other engineering ideas work ? You believe in it, you drive it ! Else there are ideas at a dime a dozen. And that BS about if you’re not paying, you’re the product and driving engagement and what not. What was TV and TRP ratings ? Was that not “free” and only selling ads and trying to capture your attention ?
You completely missed the point. The problem is not capturing your attention to show you ads. The problem is the tactics used to capture your attention are damaging social fabrics and interpersonal relationship skills. Everyone sees the world through their phone and what that world is is different per person. The result is that no one can agree on what truth is and societal organization and progress starts to deteriorate.
What tactics are you talking about here and how are those tactics different from the tactics adopted by say content you watched on tv before social media was a thing ? Tech today has overall amplified content creation, discovery and reach for everyone and taken away that power from a small set of media conglomerates. While this empowers all of us, the issue obvious at this stage is moderation which by itself is a very difficult problem given freedom of speech but should-be/is the next step in the process.
I haven't seen it yet, but isn't marketing people doing this for decades? Giving consumers a false sense of choice. Fast food companies investing billions to get people hooked on food. Manipulating consumers is something every conglomerate has been doing for years.
There was absolutely nothing in there that should have been a surprise to anyone by now in 2020, unless you're a 22 yo new grad I suppose, maybe. So many documentaries covered those exact topics for years. I was laughing at how they all acted scared for talking like it was some super secret thing going on. One other let down, no data other than ONE: teenage girl suicide rates going up. Was there no other objective data they could reveal as insiders??
This. And regarding the suicide rate chart, my impression was “correlation is not causation”. You can’t claim that social media caused the increase of teenage girl suicide rate just because the timing coincides.
@goofle for real I wasn't like woo wtf... Hold one here. Poor Zuck maybe he didn't actually kill all these teens? 😅
This "original" documentary is Netflix feeling FOMO for being in FAANG but not being invited to Congress when big tech was pulled up. @Netflix, if you produce and distribute content that isn't impartial, or highlights your conflict of interest, then you are party to the spread of misinformation as any other company mentioned in your documentary.
LOL. Nobody wants the regulation attention.
G and F is still better than pedophile ring in netflix
Have you seen WarGames? We learned that the only way to win is to not play. Except it’s billions of people that need to choose.
I haven’t seen that one