The social dilemma.

A now-famous movie that was recommended to me multiple times following its release on Netflix. After watching it, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the success and fame it has received, despite some flaws that didn’t seem to receive sufficient attention. This is a personal attempt at shedding some light on some behaviors that, I believe, shouldn’t be encouraged, but called out.

Let’s start with the core messages of the movie:

1. It is wrong to unfairly mine individuals for profit without respect, transparency, consent, and care for the individual.
2. Social media, by encouraging fake and emotional news, notably creates discord, conflict, and binary thinking.
3. Social media companies hold too much influential power.
4. Social media companies work on making their platform addictive, which is wrong.
5. All the above make social media “bad”.

All of the above points are heavily hammered through the movie, to be eventually undermined in the last 10 mins by the movie own point:

“Actually, it might just be the business model”.

This, because of its truth, invalidates most of the early demonization of the platforms. The movie worked hard to make the processes, the tools, and the platforms look like the villains, while eventually acknowledging that actually, maybe it’s just the business model that creates an incentive system that rewards those behaviors. This was supported by all the sincere interviews of the creators showing how their intent was far from evil.

And here comes my problem with this movie. Fundamentally it has a point: the business model might be wrong, as it does have a raft of dire consequences. However, the delivery of that message is distorted, clouded, and undermined for four key points:

1. It targets the wrong problems. The show spends a lot of time attacking the processes, or the methods, rather than their intents or their outcomes. The biggest example is when they talk about A/B testing; the process of serving different versions to customers, and seeing what works better. It is framed very negatively in the episode, comparing humans to lab rats, being tested for a cure they won’t benefit from. Let’s now compare that to a restaurant, that tries different variations of a recipe, refining it until maximizing customer satisfaction. This process is widely recognized as commendable and appreciated, so why make it look inherently wrong while you acknowledge that it was the incentive system of the business model that created a compassion-less agenda?
2. It demonizes, polarizes, and dramatizes the issue. The delivery of the episode is far from an objective critique, trying to weigh and discern the pros and cons. Instead, it delivers a single-sided message, supported by any means necessary to impact the viewer with doom and gloom (tense music, dark lightning, dramatic anecdotal story, extreme statements supported by real-world clips). It also tries to address too many aspects of the problem in too little time, leading to a more shallow and simplified approach. This is problematic because it changes the impact of the show. Instead of reinforcing critical thinking (a concept surprisingly not mentioned even once in the 90 mins…), it instead delivers the education equivalent of fast food. Easy to consume, quickly in, big taste impact, and very little nutritional value. Which leads to the next point:
3. It is fundamentally hypocritical. The previous point (2) lies at the core of what the episode criticizes in social media companies. That they encourage polarizing news that generate click and capture attention, rather than delivering rational building blocks of a better world. And would you look at that, that’s exactly what the show just did. To me, there was an initial good intent supported by strong materials that attempted to deliver valid core messages. But it was packaged in such a way that the outcomes won’t achieve what they wanted to preach. And, let’s talk about how it’s supported by Netflix. Not that it invalidates the message, but some self-reflection would be nice when you’re telling me that personal data mining for retention is bad after recommending the show for its 96% match… To not overstate this in writing, I invite the reader to compare how the first four core messages apply to Netflix.
4. So what? That was another key part that was missing for me. The show paints that scary picture of terrible things happening, and … that’s it. Now what? How can I, the viewer, protect myself and those around me? How can I responsibly use the technology? How can I positively impact this problem? This is not without similarities to the story mentioned in the show itself; Tristan Harris creates a presentation about the issue, which creates a lot of hype and then… disappears without impact. I have a feeling that this is exactly what is happening with this show. People consume it, feel emotionally impacted, and, having not received anything else than emotional shock, just move on. It is not constructive for a documentary to just say “this thing is horrible” and then leave us with nothing but dread.

All those combined give the impression that the purpose of the show became more to make a buck, rather than to positively influence the world on the issue, which bugs me.

And this might be the actual real problem. Not a social dilemma, but a media dilemma. How can a media company rooted in financial incentives create an influential, informative piece that will at the same time be digestible enough for a majority of the population to enjoy, whilst having objective nutritional value and positive long-lasting impact?

I don’t have any answers to that, but I feel like the balance here was far from being struck right. It scares me that even what is supposed to be “educational” is becoming more and more binary, partisan, and simplistic. And when this does happen, I would encourage to be more critical about it, call it out, and see how we could have a more positive impact.

Have an amazing day everyone, and I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts :)