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The Social Dilemma

• neves 6y ago
  The movie consulted (and interviewed) the guys from this podcast Your Undivided Attention https://www.humanetech.com/podcast https://www.humanetech.com/podcast It has nice episodes with deeper discussion of the social network social problem.
• ouid 6y ago
  I wish they had plugged adblockers at all in the movie.
  • gkoberger 6y ago
    Hmm, I don't think that was the point of the movie. It was more about social media, and no adblocker in the world will save you from Facebook or Google or YouTube tracking your usage and recommending ex boyfriends or "rabbit hole" videos to you. In fact, with the exception of one scene, I don't think a computer was even shown – all the interactions were apps on phones. (They did mention, at the end, extensions for blocking recommendations.)
    • unclebucknasty 6y ago
      I think your parent's point is that ultimately these platforms run us down the algorithmic rabbit holes that keep us on the platform in order to show us more ads. So, ad blockers might undermine that incentive.
      • threentaway 6y ago
        Facebook and many others don't use third party ad networks anymore due to the rise of ad blockers, so most ad blockers don't even work on them since they work by blocking DNS lookups for those advertising domains.
• codysc 6y ago
  I just watched this last night. A lot of the content will already be well known to the HN audience. There was one big light-bulb moment for me. One of the speakers was clarifying the "If you're not paying then you are the product" idea. He refined it to, (rough quote), "Changes to your behavior and actions are the product" That distinction made the insidiousness much more clear than the former statement.
  • amitnme 6y ago
    True I had heard many versions of this inference but this came in as a rational explanation.
  • gundmc 6y ago
    > "Changes to your behavior and actions..." Isn't this the definition (or goal) of all advertising? I don't see the connection to the first half of the statement tying it to free products and services. There are plenty of paid services that are riddled with ads as well. Movies, Cable TV, airline flights, etc. The fact is that people and organizations are _constantly_ trying to influence your behavior. It's not obvious that's only a bad thing.
    • dgudkov 6y ago
      As my ex-colleague says "Any advertisement is propaganda".
      • rexpop 6y ago
        And all propaganda is political.
      • cassianoleal 6y ago
        I believe in most Latin languages there isn't a separate word. At least in Portuguese and Spanish, both advertisement and propaganda are simply "propaganda".
        • rbanffy 6y ago
• ForHackernews 6y ago
  This film is full of hypocrites who got rich off social media and then found religion.
  • crystaln 6y ago
    They were in their early 20s trying to build a company not knowing if they would succeed, and the downside of social media is still not well understood. People who realize their past actions caused harm should be praised not denigrated.
    • ForHackernews 6y ago
      Please. The free software movement has been highlighting the danger of software that works for its authors rather than its users for 35 years. If these very intelligent people are going to claim they didn't understand what they they were doing, my only response is: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
      • rbanffy 6y ago
        These companies are not software. They are services. Services people engage with voluntarily. When you engage with a company, any company, you can be sure your incentives are not completely aligned. In the case of social networks, the misalignments are particularly troubling.
        • ForHackernews 6y ago
          > These companies are not software. Oh whoops, you better tell Big Goog so they can stop paying all those expensive software engineers. I'm sorry but the apologist arguments on this thread are really laughable: "Nobody could have known!", "It's not software!", "Young teens can just voluntarily not use the software (sorry--"service") that all their friends are on!"
          • 6y ago
• erentz 6y ago
  I would like to see the ad driven model removed as an option. I think it would help. And I think there is a separate case to be made to end ad targeting for other (privacy) reasons. But while watching this I realized that wouldn’t be the entire solution. Social platforms would seemingly still be incentivized to drive up engagement and to keep users addicted to their platforms vs other platforms. So what are some other solutions? Do we need to turn them into publishers to make them responsible for the content the spread? Or regulate algorithms and like buttons?
  • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I think the broader issue is just engagement metrics, financial and non-financial, that reward wasting time. I think there's a very achievable alternate equilibrium, where social media companies see themselves as stores to browse for great content rather than TV-style engagement factories, although I don't have a great story for how to get from here to there. If some people spent hours every day aimlessly wandering around Walmart, everyone including Walmart would see the problem - they can't find what they're looking for, the store must be laid out poorly!
  • amelius 6y ago
    Another solution is to break the network effect. Allow people to move to different (less intrusive) platforms without losing their contacts. For example, I would quit Facebook if "events" were public, and I could easily see which events my friends go to without logging in to Facebook, perhaps through some open protocol. I think universities should be more active in inventing secure, open protocols.
    • aembleton 6y ago
      Would your friends be happy having which events they're attending to be made public? If not, how would Facebook know it was you requesting the information unless you log in?
  • wussboy 6y ago
    The problem is that if you have two competing products and one has no funding and one has billions in revenue, the one with the most money will tend to dominate. So removing the ad revenue from your own product while not being able to remove it from your competitor really just hamstrings yourself.
• seveneightn9ne 6y ago
  I'd passed this over on Netflix, assuming it would be too introductory. Is it interesting enough for someone who's already familiar with the premise from having been around on HN?
  • keyme 6y ago
    I reacted the same initially, yet watched it on a whim. The answer is sort of yes, in the sense that they provide you with more succinct explanations and analogies. This is useful if you want to explain this stuff to other people (who are not on HN).
  • gkoberger 6y ago
    Definitely. There wasn't a single idea in it that was new to me, and you'll easily pick up on where they're going with certain plot points long before they get there. (And yes, there's a "plot"!) However, there were so many amazing ways they articulated things for non-technical audiences, in a cohesive way, that you'll get a ton out of it. I especially recommend watching it with non-tech friends or family! Led to a ton of great discussions for me.
  • voidhorse 6y ago
    Last month I read a bunch of academic papers on modern surveillance theory (Zuboff, who appears in the film briefly, only represents one stand of contemporary thinking about surveillance, the field is much richer), and, like others, I still found this movie interesting even though it is fairly introductory. The presentation is both entertaining and effective, which I think is a major reason this movie has early signs of having been far more successful than previous attempts to highlight the same problems. The fact that many of the voices in the film had a hand in developing the technologies they raise the alarm about also adds an intriguing edge--especially since it's easy to interpret their participation in either a positive or negative light.
  • crystaln 6y ago
    Roughly no, if you’ve followed this topic, it will be the same drumbeat. It still might be worth watching since it’s an important issue and this is the most high profile exposé.
• gkoberger 6y ago
  A lot of people are going to say this movie is filled with people who made their millions and are now on an apology tour. Their bank accounts are still large, and their creations are still at large. I agree. But this also makes them the most effective people to talk about it. I've had so many non-tech people in my life be blown away by this movie. Nothing in it was new to me or anyone here, but most people don't hear/see these things. Most people in this movie were early employees, before we knew how bad it could get. Back then, social media was connecting people in new ways. Facebook in the early days was fucking magical. It had the potential to change the world for good. And then... it didn't. For example, the inventor of the Like button talked about how the goal was to spread love and appreciation. I believe him that he didn't for-see it would someday cause a rise in suicides among young women. How could anyone? And that's why they're speaking up now. I agree with the criticisms. Lack of diversity, culpable people trying to save grace, Netflix making money off it and not being mentioned, etc. But it's not for you or me. It's the most succinct, visual description of what's happening right now, made for the average person, on a streaming platform people respect. And the voices they used mean a lot more when the ideas are coming from previous true believers.
  • clairity 6y ago
    > "Most people in this movie were early employees, before we knew how bad it could get. Back then, social media was connecting people in new ways. Facebook in the early days was fucking magical." no, before facebook, there was myspace and friendster (and more primitive social networks before that). we all knew exactly how bad it could get. facebook was not fucking magical. it was a psychological exploit for profit's sake. zuck said as much when he let his guard down. he and facebook are not to be venerated nor absolved for this bare-naked blight on humanity.
    • gkoberger 6y ago
      I think we had different experiences. MySpace and Friendster and message boards and IRC were all pretty benign. I don't think MySpace had a single "algorithm". There was no newsfeed; it was just a personal Geocities basically. How were they "bad"? Facebook WAS magical for anyone who was in college around the time it started. All of a sudden, you could connect with thousands of people around you. You could organize events, stay in touch with friends, share pictures and talk about your life. Back then, it was a very different site than it is now. If you told me in 2005, when I signed up for Facebook, that someday the election would be swayed by it? I would have laughed at you. The biggest fear back then was a drunken picture costing someone a job someday. Now governments are being crippled. I'm not venerating anyone. I'm talking about 15 years ago, not now. That was the whole point of the movie. Social media isn't inherently bad; human connection is a good thing. It's bad when it's fueled by a limitless need for growth and profit.
• _mkef 6y ago
  Great movie that I agree with 1000% . I suggest Lost Connections and 10 Arguments for deleting your social media ( mentioned in the movie) as well. I stopped using all social media as of last year and the results have been amazing. I'm more at peace , I no longer getting into stupid Facebook arguments. Online you aren't interacting with whole people, so being absurdly mean is easy. Most people online are just their for validation( or are bots , see the Ashley Madison hack and the FTC complaint against the Match Group). At this point in my life I'm no longer seeking that. Plus , as the movie points out constant validation seeking will wreck your mental health. I was having an amazing time meeting folks pre Covid and I have a plan to become more active whenever this ends. I'm thinking I'll try improv. Being around people does something for you that internet interactions simply can't.
  • Kiro 6y ago
    > I stopped using all social media as of last year You're posting this comment on social media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media > I'm more at peace , I no longer getting into stupid Facebook arguments. Online you aren't interacting with whole people, so being absurdly mean is easy. What makes HN different?
    • 01100011 6y ago
      I don't think people here appreciate you pointing out their hypocrisy. HN is different in many ways(not tailoring content based on profiles, not trying to maximize engagement, etc), but it still has many problems (groupthink, suppression of contrarian ideas, karma whoring, inconsistent fact checking, etc).
    • sibeliuss 6y ago
      It's ridiculous to compare hacker news to Facebook or any other social network mentioned in the documentary.
    • daveslash 6y ago
      I see what you're getting at, but eh, I'm not entirely convinced. What is a social network? I think there's some gray area there. The Wikipedia article you shared calls out Social Media as being "Web 2.0" (which itself is a nebulous term). One could argue that HN is just a forum, not unlike news groups that predated Web 2.0. Like I said: I see what you're getting at, and maybe HN is social media, but I would still assert that when considered as social media, HN is a far cry from a network like Facebook in terms of platform-functionality/feature-set/behavior/agenda.
• auganov 6y ago
  Can't help but see the anti social backlash as another reincarnation of luddism. The tech is what it is. Hating the biggest companies behind it won't change it. You not using it won't change the world either. Just like refusing to board a train wouldn't stop the changes its invention has brought about. The world is forever changed and looking at GDPs, it wasn't for the worse. Nothing short of a regressive global regulatory crackdown can change the new reality. I think it's worth for people to examine what it is and how it's different. But an alarmist and hostile tone isn't too conductive to that.
  • rexpop 6y ago
    I don't think you understand the Luddites, to be frank. Theirs was a reasonable reaction to the evaporation of control, individual agency (as skilled workers) and political sovereignty of the laborer. They saw their livelihoods evaporating, their financial security being siphoned away. They worked their asses off for bosses who then built their automated replacements. It was a callous betrayal, and their response was to destroy the technology which enabled that betrayal. "Hating the biggest companies behind it" will change things. Hatred, skepticism, cynicism, and distrust will change things. In a world where "regulatory capture" is almost complete, only neo-Luddism (properly understood) can hope to change things. We should be raising alarms, and we should be hostile to those institutions which siphon away our agency.
    • b_ocu 6y ago
      >They saw their livelihoods evaporating, their financial security being siphoned away. They worked their asses off for bosses who then built their automated replacements. It was a callous betrayal, and their response was to destroy the technology which enabled that betrayal. Just like old media.
      • rexpop 6y ago
        > Just like old media. The jury is still out on that one, I believe.
  • gkoberger 6y ago
• bayareabronco 6y ago
  I'm launching an open source initiative supporting several social media platforms, starting with Matrix/Element, a messaging app similar to WhatsApp; and then Mastodon, a microblogging platform similar to Twitter. The overall effort is being called the "Resiliency Network" in reference to creating a social media platform that will foster resilience in relation to the significant social, environmental, and political challenges we're facing today. If you're interested to get involved, please respond to this comment. Thank you!
  • wussboy 6y ago
    I’m interested. But you’re not the first person to think of this. What do you see as the reasons why other similar efforts have failed? Why will you succeed? I’m not trying to be negative. I’m just strongly of the opinion that making this happen will take much more than saying “we should make a better social media”, and I’m wondering if you’ve got that far.
    • Animats 6y ago
      If the distributed social networks ever get enough users to attract spammers, they'll have an even worse spam problem than the centralized ones. They don't collect enough info network-wide to detect spammers.
      • wussboy 6y ago
        I feel like that particular issue could be resolved with even the most rudimentary reputation system. It’s how humans have solved the problem amongst ourselves. But I agree it will be a problem.
        • Animats 6y ago
          Email has struggled with that problem for decades. Also, reputation systems are easily scammed. See eBay, Yelp, Amazon, etc.
  • reducesuffering 6y ago
• pgrote 6y ago
  I thought the movie was well made and did a good job explaining things, especially to people who don't follow the business. There is one consideration no one seriously thinks about when it comes to social media companies, in particular Facebook and Twitter. They cannot be fixed. They are failed experiments and need to end. The whole premise of the companies is to guide people's emotions for profit whether where they guide is good for society or not. There is no way they will be ended due to the money they make and the fact they do some good, but there is also no way they can be fixed. Regulations, corporate leadership or a set of ethics won't do the trick. The framework is diseased and is a net negative on society.
  • carlinmack 6y ago
    thoughts on nationalisation or decentralization as ways to solve this?
    • rbanffy 6y ago
      Or forbid targeting of ads on certain dimensions. Say, limit legal targeting to age and location.
  • Permit 6y ago
    > There is one consideration no one seriously thinks about when it comes to social media companies, in particular Facebook and Twitter. They cannot be fixed. They are failed experiments and need to end. If I'm understanding this correctly you're basically calling for them to be shut down. Wouldn't everyone just migrate to alternatives based in other countries? (Perhaps those less friendly to western values) Would you prefer to have TikTok to Facebook? If so, why?
  • ttul 6y ago
    I'm not sure how you go about ending Facebook and Twitter. Facebook's market capitalization is $720B. Twitter is a relative minnow at $32B. Neither will go down without a pretty enormous fight; the resources at their disposal outflank the most well funded political campaigns in history. It's not realistic to think that these large social networks can be put back into the box. Ultimately, consumers like them, even if they aren't good for us. In a democracy, it's very tough to implement measures that destroy something that people actually like. I think that social networks should be regulated in the same way as other harmful, yet enjoyable vices such as cigarettes and alcohol. A first pass would be to create a tax on social network data harvesting that starts to recognize the value they extract from us. The revenue from this tax could be invested into research that helps to understand the impact the social networks have on our lives and on democracy itself. As with cigarettes, while we did not at first realize they were harmful, once it became clear through research that they caused harm, additional funding into high quality research allowed governments to eventually create science-guided policies that have largely put a lid on the problem. We are in the 1950s of social networking: i.e. doctors still recommend it. That needs to change.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• ffggvv 6y ago
  i tried to watch the movie and i honestly don’t get the hype. It really seems to be confirmation bias where those who already hate social media just rave about the movie. and i actually think it did a very poor job at explaining things to people completely unfamiliar with the issues. i wonder if it will change a single mind or just preach to the choir
  • ppod 6y ago
    Mindchanging market's tough. Now the choir, the choir dollar's a good dollar.
  • barbs 6y ago
    Speaking from personal experience - I watched the film with my girlfriend and a lot of it was news to her. It's changed her relationship with social media and technology. I also suggested it to a friend who was pretty addicted to Facebook and believed a lot of conspiracy theories. It's made him realise how FB has given him (and others) a distorted picture of reality. He's now disconnected from Facebook and only keeping in contact via messages.
    • bickeringyokel 6y ago
      This movie hasn't been out long, you sure your friends won't be up to their old ways in a month or two?
      • barbs 6y ago
        I don't know, but they've got a hell of a lot more of a chance now that they're actually aware of the issues.
• disown 6y ago
  I wonder who is behind the "social dilemma" propaganda/advertising campaign. "Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24468533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24468533
  • gkoberger 6y ago
    I have the top comment on this thread, and nobody's paying me :) I think people are talking about it here because it's been a popular topic on HN forever, and this movie brought it mainstream. It's "controversial" to tech people for a lot of reasons (diversity, "apology tour", etc). And it's also the first time a lot of our friends and family are talking about these issues. [EDIT] I had the top comment... I've changed my mind, definitely a conspiracy!
  • messo 6y ago
    I started that tread because I was genuinely interested in peoples opinions on the film, especially the ones connected to that industry. Looking back at the answers I got, there was remarkably few comments from the latter.
• foxfired 6y ago
  The film does play a major role. Many of us here on HN don't even have an face/insta/twi/tube account. We've known about this for years. But explaining it to the layperson makes you sound like you are paranoid. The movie explains it very well. (although they omit Netflix as a culprit). Here is one thing that I have a hard time explaining to people. Fun is the enemy. Or at least the enemy is disguised as. When you share a meme, it's because it's fun. No harm there. But memes are fuel that keep the system going. People are not being misinformed (only) because the media is spewing conspiracies. They are misinformed because they are getting their news from facebook memes. You know those low quality screenshot of a news article? Or the set of 3 pictures that shows an exaggerated reaction to some news? Or worse, the twitter screenshot with no context? It is funny. That's why we share it. But when you realize what is happening in the background, it is not funny anymore. Edit: I wish they had added some metric to the little bell on top: https://i.imgur.com/WNFThds.png https://i.imgur.com/WNFThds.png . it would have shown how much the little red circle entices you to click.
  • vasilipupkin 6y ago
    It seems to me that the hypothesis that somehow social media is generating more misinformation than before is an exercise in ignoring all human history before 2004 ish. People were always misinformed, how do you explain the whole 20th century otherwise.
    • foxfired 6y ago
      You are right, people were misinformed from the dawn of history. But never before in history has the real information been so available. If you believed that pharaoh was a God, well there was no way to know otherwise. Not only you didn't know how to read, but if you did, all the writing did confirm he was, in fact, a God. Today, information about counter arguments is available for any claim. If it sounds suspicious, you can use the discretion of your mobile device and look up 2 or 3 different opinions. You can read the study. You can listen to experts in the field. You can do all that before the king finishes his speech.
      • 6y ago
• d3ntb3ev1l 6y ago
  If an ex heroin dealer (who made lots of money selling the drug) came forward and talked about the problem and how to stop it, it’s more powerful given his previous association. We shouldn’t discount the people speaking out because they created it. We should criticize them if all they do this time is continue to make money on the problem versus resolving it with the same greed and passion they put into creating it
• ttul 6y ago
  The moment that got me in this film was when they described how social network monetization algorithms gently move us toward a more radical position. We are better targets for advertisers when we spend more time on the platform. The platform doesn't care _why_ we're on the platform; it just wants us to be there as much as possible. If the platform nudges us toward radical right-wing conspiracies, so be it. Similarly, if it helps us become a fervent Democrat, so long as we're on the platform, that's all that matters. I deleted Facebook and Instagram Friday night after watching, and I suspect many of you will as well. I've had a great weekend with so much free time...
  • kenjackson 6y ago
    Why does it move us to a more radical position? Is it because the more radical you are the more time you spend on the platform? I haven't seen it, but I'm somewhat confused. FB and Instagram just show me posts from friends and family? Most youth sports, social events (weddings, dinners), babies, etc... FB does have some political posting, but IG very little. And YouTube has virtually nothing political. I never go to the News channel. Its just all sports highlights recommended to me.
    • messo 6y ago
      Your experience exemplifies one of the problems with social media: the radically different information diet served to different users. All of the platforms you mentioned can be profoundly political and filled with extreme content, depending on which rabbit whole you have been exposed to and captivated by. EDIT: I forgot to attempt to answer your actual question, sorry. It's not that the platforms intentionally tries to radicalize you. The algorithms are programed to keep your attention for as long as possible, to keep you engaged and scrolling through your feed. The more time you spend on their platform, there more ads they can show you and the more money they make. The radicalization is largely (I believe) an unintended consequence caused by the fact that recommending and showing you content that engages you emotionally makes you spend more time with them. This can also be exploited by people, groups or even nations who want to propagate a certain message or worldview.
• toomim 6y ago
  Previous discussion of the film: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24468533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24468533
• madjam002 6y ago
  I don't understand this movie. I agree with the sentiment that social media is bad for people, especially youngsters, but I fail to see how advertising and corporations are to blame for the UX practices of social media websites (notifications, infinite scroll, liking posts etc), especially to the level that the movie makes it out to be. Sure, it is in Facebook's best interest to keep you on the site for as long as possible so that they can drive ads. But the same issues with social media existed before Facebook had ads. People would still be checking their feed constantly, checking if their post had new likes, seeking the approval of their peers. One of the interviewees said he was addicted to his email... what bad practices does Gmail employ and how exactly are advertisers to blame for this as well? Gmail has a couple of ads but that's about it? It also said Whatsapp was one of the apps responsible for the spread of fake news, this is simply a texting client with the ability to send messages to groups. Maybe it turns out that if you put technology and instant messaging in the hands of social circles, messages, whether fake news or not, spreads faster than ever. If Facebook had no financial incentive, sure, maybe they would have realised the negative effect it is having on people and shut the whole thing down. But then another site would have come along doing exactly the same thing. Maybe the issue is that people don't cope well when being connected with hundreds of "friends", constantly seeing updates from their lives and feeling compelled to also share updates of their own.
  • stagehn 6y ago
    Well said, it's not a problem unique to Facebook, Twitter is as much of a problem but they don't get dragged as much because they're more willing to take a knee to the woke religion
  • pseudalopex 6y ago
    I don't think they claimed only social media has problems or advertising is the only reason it has them. Social media is where the problems meet and affect the world most. And Facebook was always designed for advertising.[1] WhatsApp has large groups anyone can join. SMS doesn't. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-first-ever-ad-sales-pitch-deck-2015-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-first-ever-ad-sale...
  • EmilioMartinez 6y ago
• kontxt 6y ago
  I wrote a critique of a The Verge editor's critique--on top of their critique--on #theSocialDilemma. Check it out here: https://www.kontxt.io/proxy/https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/9/16/21437942/social-dilemma-netflix-review-orlowski-sarah-zhang-memo-facebook-buzzfeed?user=d https://www.kontxt.io/proxy/https://www.theverge.com/interfa... Or here's a streamlined summary: https://www.kontxt.io/document/d/JdE8ujfZmPy3bIAiv-tZQXVWfVfFuj2lbuYVa6XAtGCeJ/summary https://www.kontxt.io/document/d/JdE8ujfZmPy3bIAiv-tZQXVWfVf...
• kontxt 6y ago
  I wrote a critique of a The Verge editor's critique--on top of their critique--on The Social Dilemma. Check it out here: https://www.kontxt.io/proxy/https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/9/16/21437942/social-dilemma-netflix-review-orlowski-sarah-zhang-memo-facebook-buzzfeed?user=d https://www.kontxt.io/proxy/https://www.theverge.com/interfa... Or here's a streamlined summary: https://www.kontxt.io/document/d/JdE8ujfZmPy3bIAiv-tZQXVWfVfFuj2lbuYVa6XAtGCeJ/summary https://www.kontxt.io/document/d/JdE8ujfZmPy3bIAiv-tZQXVWfVf...
• danielnixon 6y ago
  I like these two articles on the topic of Tristan Harris: https://www.wired.com/story/tech-needs-to-listen-to-actual-researchers/ https://www.wired.com/story/tech-needs-to-listen-to-actual-r... https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/03/why-silicon-valley-cant-fix-itself-tech-humanism https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/03/why-silicon-val...
• deleted 6y ago
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• sxyuan 6y ago
  The only thing worse than a free product that manipulates you, is a paid product that still manipulates you. The height of irony in The Social Dilemma was the shot where LinkedIn and Google (separately from YouTube, which is fair game IMO) were listed among these evil addictive technologies and somehow Netflix, a pioneer of autoplay and binge watching, didn't make the cut. That aside, the insidious thing about this movie is that many of the issues in brings up are real. There are real problems with social media addiction, ad tech, and filter bubbles. Changes do need to be made. Some might even need to be forced onto the big tech companies. However, these problems are not the root of all evil, as The Social Dilemma would have us believe. They are certainly not the primary cause of societal upheaval we've been seeing. Political polarization in the US has been rising since the 90s, well before social media became dominant. Racism and police violence have never really gone away. Blaming tech for everything both makes it harder to fix the real problems with tech and easier to ignore the problems that exist elsewhere in society. Off the top of my head, some things that deserve just as much blame for the problems this movie pins on technology: 1. The death of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine) People can see distorted views of the world without the help of social media. One can argue that even now, Fox News and other mainstream media have a greater role in shaping public opinion than social media does. Not to mention the conglomerization of local news (driven by capital rather than tech) and the nationalization of media (enabled by tech, but driven by the MSM). 2. The slow death of the middle class, in the US and elsewhere. An underlying assumption of The Social Dilemma and its line of argument is that people are dumb and easily manipulated. I suspect the educated elite, well-represented in the movie and over-represented here on HN, are particularly succeptible to this kind of thinking, myself included. But I think the reality is that most people care about their livelihoods more than anything else, and the polarization and upheaval we've been seeing (from Brexit to Trump) can largely be attributed to different reactions to this erosion of the middle class. The left might attribute it to unregulated capitalism and a failing social safety net. The right might attribute it to globalization, immigration, etc. The underlying phenomenon is the same, and has very little to do with tech, unless you're talking about factories and shipping costs. 3. Some problems have always been around - social media just makes everything more visible. The last century saw two world wars, plenty of revolutions and armed conflict outside of that (which seems like a gross understatement, but there are too many to list), the death of the British Empire and the rise of many new nations, lots of social upheaval in the US... the list goes on. There's plenty to say about the 21st century as well, but looking back on history, I don't know if things have really gotten that much worse. To put it differently, many on HN (myself included) love to tinker with tooling - editors, note-taking apps, what have you. But at the end of the day, we have to get back to the real work, and use those tools to accomplish meaningful things. If you look at social media and Internet technologies as tools for society, then yes, it's valuable to scrutinize them and see how they can be improved. But at the end of the day, we also need to get out into society and get to work, with whatever tools we have at hand.
• deleted 6y ago
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• 01100011 6y ago
  I'm a techie who indirectly makes money off the explosion in AI so I can't say how to fix this problem. It's good people are talking about it. There are many problems with social media and tech addiction, some of which were partially or totally covered by this movie. It was a nice production and should get people talking. I hope we all, as HN commenters, take a moment to consider our participation in social media, including this site. Please be aware that your online communities are not the real world, that people are human, and those upvotes do not validate your opinions. I apologize for all the pointless, angry arguments I've participated in, and hope you do as well. Let your humanity shine through everything you do.
• wooptoo 6y ago
  Screened Out is also very good and touches on the influence social media has on child development https://www.netflix.com/title/81306217 https://www.netflix.com/title/81306217
• un_montagnard 6y ago
  I watched it last night. It's pretty good for non HN crowd that might not know this already. But I personally felt that they forgot the most important question: what pushed algorithm to recommend what they are recommending? Why are Youtube's rabbit holes more likely to be conspiracy theory related and/or inflammatory content? In the beginning, the algorithm was probably equally pushing for this type of content and more educational content. Why can't we make science related/educational content interesting enough for it to become a rabbit hope recommended by algorithms?
  • elliotec 6y ago
    Money.
    • swyx 6y ago
      i think the more accurate answer is Engagement. we made it maximize paperclips, it maximized paperclips. sadly the most engaging is the most extreme.
      • gtsop 6y ago
        I think money is more accurate really since noone cares about engagement for the sake of engegement, but rather for the money engagement generates.
        • pseudalopex 6y ago
          Money is the root cause. Engagement is the direct cause. Both are important.
      • un_montagnard 6y ago
        I agree with that. I think the question that's left unanswered is "why can't we make educational/scientific/historic content that drives up engagement?"
        • 6y ago
• tagami 6y ago
  BF Skinner. Variable reward loops. Your programmed brain. It’s how Vegas works, it’s how adverts work, it’s how how study for tests in school
• tempsy 6y ago
  I find TikTok is the most insidious of all the social media apps out there. If Instagram is like candy, TikTok is like crack. Worst part is the primary demographic is younger kids/teens.
  • nicbou 6y ago
    I just remember when it was called Musical.ly and advertised with videos of very young teens dancing.
• cm2012 6y ago
  Documentaries are the worst way to put forth a legitimate argument (in this case, the argument is that social media is bad). The Social Dilemma, like other docs meant to persuade, is shallow and one sided. Entertainment in the guise of information.
• pier25 6y ago
  I saw it a couple of days ago. I'm not the audience for this doc but I liked the interviews. The dramatizations were boring but I guess they make the point for younger audiences.
• ryan-allen 6y ago
  > "Changes to your behavior and actions are the product" This and how they are eroding the attention spans of the consumers of their product. Now more than ever it is important that thought workers develop their attentional skills, they're in short supply and getting shorter and shorter!
• sicromoft 6y ago
  Watch out for misinformation on all sides. This film tries to use bicycles to make a point and gets it completely wrong. See https://twitter.com/peteyreplies/status/1306186884683567104 https://twitter.com/peteyreplies/status/1306186884683567104.
  • EmilioMartinez 6y ago
    I was surprised that comment went through a production of dozens of people and no one saw a problem with it.
  • odux 6y ago
    Thanks for this. I was watching it yesterday and thought 'there is no way everyone was ok with bicycles' when he said that. It is not human nature. I also think a healthy dose of skepticism is good as long as we fall back to scientific data.
  • messo 6y ago
    Yeah, I was quite surprised by this historically incorrect analogy when I saw the film, but this does not invalidate many of the other good points that was made. Every argument should be evaluated on its own merit.
• jwilber 6y ago
  I really like this documentary/film, but if I’m being honest, it does leave a taste of typical SV virtue signaling in my mouth. The website explicitly states that their site allows cookies "set through our site by our advertising partners and may be used to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant ads on other sites." Since visiting I received two ads for “Moment” in instagram, and one for Asana on YouTube. Crazy hypocritical, opt-in or not.
  • dpcan 6y ago
    This actually enforces the point of the movie. We don’t live in a world that can break free of these atrocities.
    • jwilber 6y ago
      ? The point of the movie (per the website as well) is literally a call to, “rebuild the system.”
      • dpcan 6y ago
        That’s not what it’s about, that’s what they tell you it’s about.
  • wrnr 6y ago
    Every anti-war movie ends up being a pro-war movie. I stoped watching it halfway through because I couldn't get past the cheap narrative device of begging a question and interrupting the answer with cheap drama. Sort of like cable television or youtube, "How did they build this big thing, find out after a word of our sponsor". The infamous 1 in 3 success rate to keep the user engaged with little dopamine hits. I think I'll become aware before the machine ever will.
  • surround 6y ago
    Not to mention the film is funded and owned by Netflix itself.
    • 6y ago
• g42gregory 6y ago
  I was really affected by the first 3/4th of the movie. But then, they started expressing their (personal?) beliefs, for example: "What happens if people begin to believe that government lies to them?" Oh horror! ...Well that happens sometimes, and sometimes with a good reason. They kind of stared loosing credibility with me after that. I wish the movie would stay on a single message/issue. It would have been more powerful, at least for me.
  • intricatedetail 6y ago
    Seems like they want to control facts and packaged it as educational, helping piece. Imho that's quite disgusting manipulation.
• intricatedetail 6y ago
  How is this different from the manipulation it pictures?
• jasoneckert 6y ago
  While I enjoyed Jaron Lanier's perspectives during this documentary, I'm somewhat disappointed that the solution he proposed in his 3-part video series for the New York Times was omitted: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/23/opinion/data-privacy-jaron-lanier.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/23/opinion/data-...
  • Aachen 6y ago
    Which is what? From the titles and what I remember from the social dilemma, it's putting some value on personal data and either paying people for it or taxing it?
• holtkam2 6y ago
  This should be required viewing for all high school students.
• Whut 6y ago
  I really liked the information in this movie. I didn't hear anything that I didn't already know, but I thought it was well done. I really hope people turn away from these technologies. I feel like the only way we can heal our information ecosystem is buy educating people about the dangers of a social media heavy information diet. I think we also need to be mindful of the identities within us that these algorithms are exploiting. Ask yourself how you feel when you get off these sites. My answer was always "mad', "angry" or "sad". Once you realize the effect these sites have on your mood, you're a lot more motivated to change your behavior.
• mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Is it supposed to be ironic that this show is, in effect, an advertisement for Netflix? By not mentioning that Netflix’s goal is to get consumers to watch nonsense all day, it appears so... Netflix would love people to log off of Facebook and log on Netflix :)
  • 01100011 6y ago
    Does Netflix make more money when I spend more time on their platform? I'm sure there will be a day when they do, but right now I think they make a flat subscription fee from me. Maybe they can sell more of my viewing habits the longer I watch? Maybe they have content which they're paid to serve? I don't know. I think that, right now, Netflix really isn't in the same category as the big social media companies.
    • bagacrap 6y ago
      I'm positive there's a strong correlation between hours spent on the app and likelihood of renewing next month.
      • 01100011 6y ago
        Is that a linear relationship though? The revenue of other social media sites scales with my usage time. Netflix just has to provide me with an amount of value exceeding the subscription price and I will continue to be a customer. It actually costs them more if I overindulge on their service. They should be maximizing a certain level of viewing and no more.
• fmakunbound 6y ago
  I came out of it with a fresh hatred of Adtech.
• frankydp 6y ago
  Social Media platforms are like being famous without any of the good parts. You just get all the shitty parts of living your life with 1000 fake friends(I mean fans) like a hero complex, or an influence complex, or hyper sensitivity to judgement, or addiction to others opinions, or addiction, or suicide, or an inability to communicate with people different than you, or an inability to determine fact from scam, or a permanent state of social one-up-manship, or a constant stream of unending judgement for all your actions in a public forum, or shit tons of fake friends, or complete social isolation in a room of people, or an advocate complex. All for the pretend reason of "communication" or "connecting the world". Humans are not built to have close social bonds with 50+ people, it breaks down something about what grounds us. It is why there is a cliché for the famous person with all the bad parts above.
  • olive247 6y ago
    Humans absolutely are not built for large social networks. There is a theory called Dunbar's number that suggests that humans have a cognitive limit of ~150 social relationships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
    • _underfl0w_ 6y ago
      "A friend to all is a friend to none." -Aristotle
    • dalbasal 6y ago
      IMO, the continuation to Dunbar's number (theory) is Yuval Noah Harari's theory, as outlined in Sapiens. That is, early humans were intelligent animals, but limited in our sophistication by Dunbar's number, so to speak. That is our range of social behaviour (and therefore most behaviour) was biologically limited to small social groups. The Palaeolithic revolution circa 50kya-100kya was (according to YNH) the invention of language and "fiction" sophistication which enabled cooperation and in larger groups. The concept of a "tribe" with ancestors, shared traditions and social cooperation in much larger groups. Much larger groups allow for much more sophistication. In some sense, he defines human progress as the quality of cooperation in larger groups. Basically culture takes over from biology, in determining effective human social group size. Social networks are just another advancement in this trend. All these advancements are somewhat pathological, because they're at odds with our innate (noncultural) limitations. Consider how bad we are at "politics" and how "politics" is a bad word. The contrast is decision making in small, tight knit groups.
• maerF0x0 6y ago
  I laughed how the industry folks were all product and exec. Like 0 engineers. Talk about a zero social status career choice, and people wonder why people want to be managers.
  • person_of_color 6y ago
    Hmm time to move to product manager?
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• strawberrypuree 6y ago
  If you're looking for your next step after this documentary, it's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capita...
• deleted 6y ago
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• anongoesprivate 6y ago
  ha, the hypocrites, below is the dns request ublock origin showing on this site ```thesocialdilemma.com``` ```www.thesocialdilemma.com``` ```doubleclick.net``` ```googleads.g.doubleclick.net``` ```static.doubleclick.net``` ```fonts.googleapis.com``` ```youtube.com``` ```www.youtube.com``` if they truly have virtue, they could have used some other open sources to build the site
  • patchtopic 6y ago
    https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ :-)
    • anongoesprivate 6y ago
      :-), haha not my intention, but i watched the documentary and it seemed pretty intense, so just got curious why they used google things
• hexxiiiz 6y ago
  On one hand, I think there is certainly a perspective in this doc that shows where critical views are needed around the consequences of certain business models coming from big tech. On the other hand, it seems to attribute a lot of the recent political divide to the rise of social networks without considering that a lot of these changes happened alongside the wake of the 2008 economic collapse, which almost certainly has contributed a lot to this political division. The suggestion that things were good before these social networks permeated people's lives overlooks a much longer narrative of wealth inequality in the West, and particularly in the US issues with housing, jobs, and the education ssystem. In some ways, the social dilemma is the ultimate #firstworldproblem of our time.
• isignal 6y ago
  It was a persuasive documentary but I felt it conflates two issues which happened together - the rise of mobile phones and the rise of social media. The rise of smartphones has an important role in making social media more addictive. Some people are addicted to watching videos from Netflix or browsing websites like hacker news etc on smartphones too, which isn't necessarily a "social" activity. All the engagement tricks played by social media would have only gotten so far without smartphones. On the contrary, people might have been addicted to smartphones even without social media apps.
• kabes 6y ago
  One thing suggested in the movie is to consume a wide variety of media. Coincidentally, I've been doing exactly this for a few months. I started reading both vice and breitbart and their comment sections. And it gave me a way more nuanced perspective than staying inside my filter bubble / echo room.
  • camillomiller 6y ago
    I understand the experiment, but reading the comments on Vice and Breitbart is really not a good way I would pick to spend my time. They’re both quite bad examples of toxic commenters communities, regardless of the political orientation.
• kaichanvong 6y ago
  I got half way through this... possibly less. Its really a shocking thing to see that people dont know for themselves someone in tech they can trust and chat to about the actual problem. Actually a group of people. I consider it more the social experiment. The show is great for getting people to consider but also reconsider. Time to get back into it I suppose!
• sexy_seedbox 6y ago
  This film could have been much shorter without the cheesy subplot which felt like a bad episode of Black Mirror.
• crearo 6y ago
  What really resonated with me is one of the speakers talking about taxing companies on collecting users' data. They first establish that the sole driving factor for these companies is making more money than the previous quarter. Now, if companies had to pay financially for all the data they store, they wouldn't have as strong an incentive to collect every possible data point that they can.
  • unityByFreedom 6y ago
    That would destroy net neutrality. No thanks.
• djhaskin987 6y ago
  Kinds of ironic that a web site that says tech controls and monetizes us had a "please accept cookies" dialog in the same breath.
• mkbkn 6y ago
  I just watched it this weekend. The idea most resonated to me was the comparison of FB feed with Wikipedia. What if Wikipedia shows everyone a different page rather than the same? That's manipulation. And it's not good in that context.
• Kosirich 6y ago
  Does anyone see a tipping point or an event that could in scale drive people from social media of Facebook, Twitter. By that I don't mean to a competitor.(perhaps a naive question) Also, is there a common denominator among people here who have stopped using social media? I mean, other than self awareness, retrospective ect. which people here generally have more than the average population. What was the "I need to reduce or stop looking at facebook so often moment?" Mine was the fact that I became aware that I'm essentially a dog from Pavlovs experiment where instead of a bell I have a notification sound/buzz and instead of a biscuit I get a little dopamin shot. Second was the trackers, especially as they got better and faster. I started feeling 'cheap', as I feel in reality when a merchant uses obviously exaggerated claims while acting as a friend to try to convince me to buy something. (Like last time I went to a car dealership, yuck) Third is that the connection to people I care about, close family and friends, is much better served via private group messaging apps and news via HN and others.
  • Shinchy 6y ago
    I could possibly see the upcoming US Election causing a bit of an exodus from Social Media platforms as more people become drained by the fatiguing constant flow of extreme views from both sides (mind, I thought that last time). I will say the big thing for me that made me put my mobile device down (of which I now barely use) was the sheer quantity of hours a day I was wasting away looking at it - this was being amplified by Covid. My thing was getting worked up by stupidity or hateful opinions on Twitter or Reddit (obviously the platforms helped out). The more I looked the more I got annoyed, seeking out arguments if you will. It wasn't until I just stepped back and realised that I'm seeking the opinions of a tiny tiny fraction of a global population that I realised how stupid it was. There are 7 billion people in the world, you can find any opinion you want - it's foolish to spend your day hunting these down and what's worse is that it starts to warp your own personal view away from who you really are. I think the catalyst was Covid for making me realise this, I think more people will start waking up to the same reality.
    • Kosirich 6y ago
      Wow, thank you! You nail down the issue with a very personal and relatable story. I think only difference between you and I is that I never had a need to go into arguments over posts/tweets I considered wrong (I was a mazohist that just read them). What 'got to me' was not the sheer untruthfulness of things shared on twitter nor insults that flow there and back, but the behavior of people that I think could and should know better. Another lightbulb moment was the realization that any nuanced conversation after 5 to 10 comments goes into the extremes (usually two) that it can boiled down to. There are no different shades of gray, just black or white. In case of covid19, this changed to 3 comments. Another lightbulb moment was the so called "twitter/facebook isn't real life" where I realized that in my surroundings I have a hard time finding a single person that has ever participated in twitter ststorms or facebook comment fights.
• database_lost 6y ago
  I think its good documentaries like this are made, so a greater audience gets attuned with these issues, but I for one could not get further than about 30-mins... I was honestly disappointed that such an important topic was deemed too "complex" and "nerdy" that the creators decided to resort to actors to show us the effects of these technologies... Which I guess is in line with the short attention spans caused by social media :/
• pietroppeter 6y ago
  An interesting thread that points a couple of issues in the movie: https://twitter.com/vaishnavi/status/1307455391249301504 https://twitter.com/vaishnavi/status/1307455391249301504 Summarizing: the people interviewed were not the one who should have been interviewed. People from in house policy temas and others are much more knowledgeable about this and have been raising these types of issues all along. It would also have helped to show a much more diverse picture than a bunch of repented tech bros. At the end of the thread, two additional posts reinforce and expand the message: https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/social-dilemma-netflix-technology.html https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/social-dilemma-netflix-... https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2020/09/17/flamethrowers-and-fire-extinguishers-a-review-of-the-social-dilemma/ https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2020/09/17/flamethr...
  • messo 6y ago
    This twitter user seems to be currently working on Instagram and much of the thread seems to be an awkward search for a way to justify her industry's existence and finding ways to blame former colleges for their ignorance. Some of the points made are interesting, but at the same time quite biased.
• ricardo81 6y ago
  Nothing new in it for the HN crowd I suppose. For me, privacy is the core issue, though "free" is part of the problem. A social network charging a dollar a year wouldn't be great for investors but would essentially pay for itself. (As a Brit, I'd be more inclined to pay that dollar than the BBC license fee at ~170x the expense for all the "soft power" it has.). With the monetary dial removed, filter bubbles are still a problem. I'm thinking it would be good if more algorithms could be used to counterweight a persons predilections. Show me stuff based on my interactions/friends/groups I'm in/people like me/opinions I hold/mood I'm in, but counterweight it with things/people that are potentially opposite or more neutral. Perhaps associate with groups of ideas for this cause, i.e. political belief, people at my place of work, people that visit the same places I do. It could be totally transparent, viewed, and even possibly reset. I think the documentary was good for the general public to me made aware of how Facebook/Google, pretty much all "big tech" is aggressively mining data, some more than others.
  • hazz99 6y ago
    I don't remember where I saw this, but I remember reading something about each user costing Facebook about $8 a year due to all the complex DB querying they do. That'd probably shrink if they didn't need targeted advertising, but a lot of the complex friend graphs might result in some hefty computation at scale.
    • ricardo81 6y ago
      Interesting. Searched around and found [0] (and others with same info) but I suppose there'd be more information if digging deeper. They mention previous years costing $0.40 and $0.60 per month, not sure if the number includes capital investment rather than YoY costs of hardware/electricity etc. Point taken though. [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2012/05/16/186064/the-biggest-cost-of-facebooks-growth/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2012/05/16/186064/the-bigge...
  • Aachen 6y ago
    I'm really not interested in constantly being recommended opposite viewpoints to mine. I'd constantly be getting climate denial content. Most conspiracy theories I never look into, but the 5G one made me wonder how stupid can you be. So when they thought they had enough evidence to convince a judge and sued the Dutch government, I opened the evidence they supplied and read through it. I've spent hours and hours trying to figure it out but there just isn't logic to it. It's all misreadings, misinterpretations, misconceptions, etc. Their references were false as well (saying the WHO claimed X in a paper from year Y, complete with a link that leads to a blog post about it but doesn't link the source, and the WHO site has no publications on that topic in the given year; turns out they had a paper about that topic one year later but it doesn't support the claim at all). Yesterday I was looking something climate related up and came across a Belgian site, seemed like a newspaper, that denies the whole thing. Confused, I opened it and read a bit to make sure they were really calling it a hoax and I hadn't misunderstood. Yep, they did. They pointed to 500 scientists from around the world who signed something saying we should be less political about it and base it more on science, and then that science should include the uncertainties in their reports because all the climate models are super uncertain, and that it turns out the heating is going much less fast than previously claimed. I mean, all proper papers disclose uncertainties. And yes, we should be more science based and get the fuck on with decarbonizing. Then as for it not being so bad (it not going as fast), it's going super fast, I don't know where they got this. No, I'm really not interested in this kinda garbage. For me the Youtube recommendations are straightforward: I click a video about maps, next I get more geographic analysis videos recommended to me. I'd rather not that someone feels obliged to make it insert opposite content (what's opposite to maps, flat earther stuff? Or just unscientific blabbering when what I'm mainly watching is objective/sciency stuff?). Or do we want to only insert opposite viewpoints to those who believe in conspiracy theories? Who decides what's real and what's not? Why have the conspiracy theory content on the site at all if we know it's false? Can we not find the root of the problem: the people who make these videos, where do they get their info and misconceptions from?
• zero_kool 6y ago
  Looks like Nir Eyal (Author of Hooked) was interviewed for 3 hours of this documentary. But, none of his clips made it to the final version. https://twitter.com/nireyal/status/1307577732448964608 https://twitter.com/nireyal/status/1307577732448964608
  • tim333 6y ago
    I kind of agree with his point >The filmmakers attempt to manipulate people into fearing technology that the filmmakers say is manipulating them. I mean there are real problems with fake news stories getting promoted for example. On the other hand I'm quite happy to have a facebook account which I glance at occasionally to see what friends are up to. Or an HN account which is fun if a bit of a time sink.
• ilaksh 6y ago
  It's not the technology. It's the people and what they are doing with it. Technology is just an amplifier.
• iamericfletcher 6y ago
  I find it interesting when the individual(s) who ruthlessly engineer the problem(s) take on the role of some sort of savior only after successfully extracting life changing amounts of wealth.
  • daniellarusso 6y ago
    Yesterday’s robber baron is today’s philanthropist.
• dalbasal 6y ago
  There is a major point of difference, between online media monopolies and the old railroad, infrastructure and commodity monopolies of old is "What happens if they dissolve." If Toyota fell off the edge of the disc, next year the world has less capacity to produce cars. A lot of capital will need to be obtained, and that will need to be turned into factories over several years before the world's productive capacity is restored. Meanwhile, people will have fewer new cars. If Facebook, Twitter, or even (many parts of) Google disappear... Alternatives will emerge almost immediately. Social networking is not expensive to provide, and certainly not capital intensive. It'll be via a different UI, but none of us will lack for social media, messaging and such. This is a crucial difference, economically. Social media is worth literal trillions, yet the industry could disappear without any consumer shortages. Something to consider, as the power of these giants starts to resemble the old colonial trading companies'. This may be the least necessary industry ever.
  • kkdsafjid 6y ago
    Are you sure social networking is not expensive to provide? What makes you think so?
    • dalbasal 6y ago
      I think this is one of those "difficult to fully work through in a comment thread" topics. So, I don't expect to convince anyone that isn't already sympathetic to this point. That said... For a bottom-up argument, consider mostly text based media like twitter or whatsapp. If you're involved in similar tech, I think it's quite easy to roughly estimate both the development and infrastructure requirements for something like this. It isn't too different from an email service or another text-centric media. Also (like email) it lends well to a distributed architecture, so may not even need a centralized infrastructure. Hosting and serving video is costlier. Again, distributed architecture can make this irrelevant, or a much smaller. Even assuming a Facebook clone though, hard costs like video streaming are a small fraction of facebook revenue. Re: distributed architecture. Remember that this is what the internet/web is fundamentally designed to do. It's not radical, and there are working examples out there that will work at massive scale. The www itself is such an example, but there are also more explicit examples that work more like Facebook does. For a comparative argument, consider FB or Twitter when they were much (revenue-wise) smaller. Consider minor social networks (like HN). These might have 1/100th of FB or Twitter's usage, but generally operate on orders of magnitude less revenue user-for-user. Basically, there are enough demonstrative examples to convince me that it is possible, even trivial.
• deleted 6y ago
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• everdrive 6y ago
  This has been done to death. And, I don't mean that I'm tired of hearing it. It's more like talking about the obesity epidemic. Conceptually the solution ought to be pretty simple. (eat less food, exercise more) But in practice it's a pernicious problem which plays on our weaknesses, and does so in a way such that most people are vulnerable. We never solved this problem. Most people are a little too fat. And so too is seems with social media. There are solutions out there which definitely could work, but I doubt we'll ever truly implement them. The problem of social media is human impulse control. And as you know, across a wide population, impulse control is lacking.
  • moosey 6y ago
    And yet we are now looking at the obesity epidemic from the production side, rather than blaming people. The food itself hijacks important systems that are parts of our hardware. As the movie demonstrates, social media all too often does the same thing: hijacks the hardware. And as humans, we have a lot of important social instincts that are built in. Companies should not be permitted to take advantage of it: Artificial intelligences that plan feeds to addict us should be illegal, in my not so humble opinion.
    • nradov 6y ago
      If you think the blame lies on the production side then how do you explain the low obesity rate in Japan? They have no significant restrictions on food production. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2228rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
      • moosey 6y ago
        Extreme social compliance and social comparison, two things that are also built into the hardware.
• JackPoach 6y ago
  This is one of the few Netflix documentaries that I regret wasting my time on. Not only there's no new information in it, but it seems to be deliberately done in a way to promote outrage and get attention from the political apparatus to regulate social media to death.
  • messo 6y ago
    This film was not made for you. Techies like us have been up to speed on these topics for years, but most people have not. Many people might have a creeping feeling that something is wrong in the world of social media, but almost none understands the actual mechanics of an algorithm and what it can do when applied on a global scale. This film is made for them, and judging by the reactions to the movie from non-tech people around me, it has had a profound effect and made them reflect deeply about their use of social media.
    • JackPoach 6y ago
      Maybe not. I am 40+ years old and I clearly remember how the 80s and the 90s were full of stories about satanism. How listening heavy metal will turn kids into satanists. How there are satanist societies with child sacrifices. That's exactly the feeling I got after watching this documentary. Oh, social media is the next satanism and Zach is new Anton LaVey. Got it.
      • messo 6y ago
        Yeah, I'm not that far from 40 myself and having grown up in a charismatic church in the 90ies, I sure remember the scare around heavy metal (or any rock for that matter) and that most things in fact was satanic. Fun times. This docudrama explains hard-to-understand concepts by telling emotional stories that most people can relate to, which frankly should be done more often for technical stuff affecting society in not so obvious ways. Again, this film is not for developers and engineers who mostly prefer dry facts. It's for everyone else.
• hliyan 6y ago
  I have a (unverified) hypothesis that the root cause is government spending: government spending -> inflation -> need for high returns on investments -> investor pressure -> growth -> advertising -> need for attention -> sensationalization.
• darekkay 6y ago
  The "Nosedive" episode of Black Mirror [0] is a nice thought experiment, where the whole person's life revolves around a social media score. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/
• MrXOR 6y ago
  There are only two industries that refer to their customers as users: illegal drugs and software (social media).