[HN Gopher] The Social Dilemma
___________________________________________________________________
The Social Dilemma
Author : vinceleo
Score : 119 points
Date : 2020-09-20 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thesocialdilemma.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thesocialdilemma.com)
| danielnixon wrote:
| I like these two articles on the topic of Tristan Harris:
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/tech-needs-to-listen-to-actual-r...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/03/why-silicon-val...
| tus88 wrote:
| Propaganda.
| ttul wrote:
| 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...
| sxyuan wrote:
| 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)
|
| 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.
| kart23 wrote:
| There should be more laws regulating apps on the notifications
| and information they must provide to users, since many are
| purposely designed to be addictive. We require smoking ads and
| packaging to have giant warnings about the health risks. So why
| don't we require similar warnings on apps?
|
| I'm just throwing out some ideas, but maybe some sensible
| mandated defaults that can be changed if users are annoyed. Like
| pop-ups every 30 minutes warning how much time has been spent in-
| app. Or mandatory screen time tracking and activity reports,
| stored locally. Or how many notifications were shown today, and
| which ones did you click on?
| 01100011 wrote:
| 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.
| pgrote wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| thoughts on nationalisation or decentralization as ways to
| solve this?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Or forbid targeting of ads on certain dimensions. Say, limit
| legal targeting to age and location.
| Permit wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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]
| ouid wrote:
| I wish they had plugged adblockers at all in the movie.
| gkoberger wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| ffggvv wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Mindchanging market's tough. Now the choir, the choir dollar's
| a good dollar.
| disown wrote:
| 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
| gkoberger wrote:
| 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.
| toomim wrote:
| Previous discussion of the film:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24468533
| asou wrote:
| 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.
| elorant wrote:
| _I no longer getting into stupid Facebook arguments_
|
| That's the one thing I absolutely loathe about Facebook.
| There's no constructive dialogue going on. Everyone is so full
| of themselves that any kind of argument derails pretty fast.
| And then there is the fact that the platform doesn't provide
| the structure for long conversations. After a couple of replies
| all text has the same indentation so it's hard to see who's
| responding to what comment. I've been online for twenty years,
| and I've never seen a environment more hostile to conversation
| than Facebook.
| ImaCake wrote:
| Sometimes I have commented on facebook forgetting it was not
| HN or another niche community. If you start talking about how
| your country's weather bureau monitors itself for forecast
| accuracy then you will almost certainly be met with silence
| if you try to do that on facebook.
| ImaCake wrote:
| >10 Arguments for deleting your social media
|
| I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Mostly for this golden quote
| which I have saved:
|
| >Cats have done the seemingly impossible: They've integrated
| themselves into the modern high-tech world without giving
| themselves up. They are still in charge. There is no worry that
| some stealthy meme crafted by algorithms and paid for by a
| creepy, hidden oligarch has taken over your cat. No one has
| taken over your cat; not you, not anyone.
| Kiro wrote:
| > 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
|
| > 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?
| tubularhells wrote:
| No offence, but you are arguing on HN, Reddit, Chan boards, /.
| now. Where is the difference? I did similarly but keep getting
| sucked into these communities simply because I'm alone in my
| head a lot of the time.
| asou wrote:
| As mentioned below hacker news is a niche website, the
| dialogue here is much more intelligent than on Facebook.
|
| For now I don't see talking on hacker news as stressful, but
| I definitely will stop using this site if it becomes so.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Discussion on HN and Reddit tends to be more thoughtful in my
| experience.
|
| Yes, it's still just wasting time away but it can be somewhat
| more mentally stimulating than FB drama.
| madjam002 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| auganov wrote:
| 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.
| gkoberger wrote:
| You should watch the movie. You'll find that it's closer to
| your opinion than you're assuming here.
| rexpop wrote:
| 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.
| codysc wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| True I had heard many versions of this inference but this came
| in as a rational explanation.
| gundmc wrote:
| > "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.
| dbtc wrote:
| The advertisers are the buyers, the platforms are the sellers
| whose product is your well-trained eyes.
| ppod wrote:
| Also there is an underlying class thing going on with "you
| are the product". Choosing to pay for a service is not just
| an equal alternative to a free service for most people. Most
| people have to work hard to afford paid services, many of
| them at low wages. Sneering at people who choose to use a
| free service rather than sell their time for $15 an hour is
| not a great look.
| dgudkov wrote:
| As my ex-colleague says "Any advertisement is propaganda".
| cassianoleal wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| You can also use "publicidade" in Portuguese, but
| "propaganda" is not used exclusively for "political
| propaganda".
| hapticmonkey wrote:
| I prefer David Foster Wallace's description of advertising:
|
| "It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety
| relievable by purchase."
| lozf wrote:
| I always liked: "Advertising robs you of your dignity,
| and sells it back to you at the price of the product."
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| With the arguable exception of therapy/counselling, you
| can never retrieve your dignity and self-worth by buying
| a product.
|
| So all it really does is sell the _promise_.
| rexpop wrote:
| And all propaganda is political.
| swader999 wrote:
| The implications for election advertising are that votes and
| even revolutions are available to the highest bidder.
| shajznnckfke wrote:
| Not just advertising, but any communication. You wrote this
| comment to influence me and everyone who else who read it.
| disown wrote:
| > He refined it to, (rough quote), "Changes to your behavior
| and actions are the product"
|
| That's true of all media. Doesn't matter if you pay for it or
| not. Even netflix. Even this post.
|
| What is the "documentary" trying to achieve? Change behavior.
|
| Who is behind the social media campaign?
|
| "Ask HN: What do you think about "The Social Dilemma"?"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24468533
|
| > That distinction made the insidiousness much more clear than
| the former statement.
|
| Just as insidious are "documentaries". They are just as sneaky
| and agenda driven as facebook algorithms.
| burkaman wrote:
| > What is the "documentary" trying to achieve? Change
| behavior.
|
| But will the filmmakers profit if they succeed? They don't
| make any money by successfully changing your mind.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| This film is full of hypocrites who got rich off social media and
| then found religion.
| rexpop wrote:
| Yes, and? It's impossible to escape [ideological indoctrination
| ](https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-
| ideo...).
| crystaln wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| erentz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| wussboy wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| 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.
| foxfired wrote:
| 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 . it would have shown how
| much the little red circle entices you to click.
| vasilipupkin wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bayareabronco wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| seveneightn9ne wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 expose.
| kontxt wrote:
| 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/interfa...
|
| Or here's a streamlined summary:
| https://www.kontxt.io/document/d/JdE8ujfZmPy3bIAiv-tZQXVWfVf...
| gkoberger wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > "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 wrote:
| 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.
| clairity wrote:
| of course everything looks rosy with rose-colored glasses
| on, but facebook not only encouraged those glasses, but
| made you believe the glasses didn't even exist. same with
| google. it only took a little perspective shift and
| foresight to realize the future dangers under a relentless
| profit motive. the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was
| convincing the world he didn't exist.
| gkoberger wrote:
| The first time you loaded up TheFacebook in high school
| and saw your friend set his status to "Greg is making
| dinner!", you thought "ah yes, someday this will topple
| governments due to disinformation campaigns"?
|
| Are you sure you aren't conflating "it's obvious" with
| hindsight bias?
| rbanffy wrote:
| We can call it a failure of imagination, but when you
| have a tool that knows a lot about your political views
| and your location, we should have predicted that
| information would be used to hypertarget political
| propaganda.
|
| And all advertising has the goal of swaying _some_
| election - which car you buy, where you get your
| groceries, what clothes you choose. You think you made
| those choices without external influence when you didn
| 't.
| gkoberger wrote:
| That's my point, though - that wasn't true in 2006!
| Maybe, just maybe, I posted "Gregory is voting for
| ______" in 2008, but that's not how people used Facebook
| back then.
|
| There was no realtime location collection (no iPhones),
| no sharing of articles, no commenting on posts, no
| groups, no minifeed, etc. There wasn't any mechanisms for
| all the data to be used for targeting. When I started
| using Facebook, you literally had to go to a person's
| page to check on them. There was no newsfeed or algorithm
| or ads. There definitely weren't bots.
|
| It was pretty unimaginable that you could figure out who
| someone was voting for and influence them based on how FB
| was in 2006. Now, of course, it's different.
| Voloskaya wrote:
| > we all knew exactly how bad it could get.
|
| You were very smart then, congratulations.
|
| Back in 2006 there was no mention anywhere of "fake news",
| "bias bubbles" and such because there was almost no news
| sharing in Facebook, and your feed was not curated to only
| show you what you were most likely to like. There was no
| political advertising on Facebook for a long time, and even
| no ads at all until like 2007 or 2008.
|
| User tracking was almost non existent as well until 2010 or
| so.
|
| So sure, there was already some concern about privacy back
| then, it was mostly about people voluntarily over-sharing
| thins they shouldn't, not about being tracked and manipulated
| against your wish.
| npunt wrote:
| > But this also makes them the most effective people to talk
| about it.
|
| Nope nope nope. While tech people might have some insight into
| how some of the tech works, they're still lost in how to both
| define the problem [1] and describe how these technologies may
| shape society [2]. Nothing in their professional or personal
| experience has adequately prepared them to answer these
| questions.
|
| The thing tech people can do now is listen carefully to people
| _who study and understand the many areas tech touches in
| society_ , and work with them on solutions that are well-vetted
| and considered. Tech people need to open their minds and use
| their power to give voice to those who can more clearly see and
| explain what's wrong [3].
|
| > I believe him that he didn't for-see it would someday cause a
| rise in suicides among young women. How could anyone?
|
| There were, in fact, people who could have predicted this. They
| study things like... teens and mental health. Not things people
| in tech tend to study. Lets not assume what we don't know must
| not be known.
|
| We got into this mess because of hubris. That same hubris will
| not get us out of it.
|
| [1] you will note they struggled with this part in the
| documentary.
|
| [2] beyond facile doom and gloom.
|
| [3] Center for Humane Tech's podcast has some good interviews
| with experts, but those voices were largely absent in this doc,
| and the response I see to this doc still largely falls in the
| camp of 'techies should evangelize/solve it', which is what I'm
| responding to here.
| gkoberger wrote:
| The Center for Humane Tech's founders, Tristan Harris and Aza
| Raskin, were the main people interviewed. You can't say they
| don't know what they're talking about, and then cite their
| organization.
|
| I think it means a lot coming from people who created the
| technology. Maybe not to me or you, but it definitely does to
| non-tech people.
|
| It's like how a thousand people can say K-Cups are bad for
| the environment, but it's way more shareable that the creator
| regrets it.
| npunt wrote:
| Oh I agree that the story 'I made it and I regret it' is
| catchy and very useful to add to the conversation. It's a
| 'man bites dog' type of headline in that it gets the
| general audience to pay attention. It's valuable to have
| that perspective.
|
| I like Tristan and Aza and CHT and think they're smart,
| well-meaning people who are doing their best, and I value
| what they bring. I especially like their focus on trying to
| explain some complex stuff in terms and ideas that are
| simple enough for people to grasp. I'd love to see more
| well-vetted solutions from them; screen time was a valuable
| concept they advocated for.
|
| As far as whether tech people are the _most effective_
| people to talk about the problems they created, I don 't
| agree. I'd prefer someone who has expertise in the
| implications of technologies, who can root what is
| happening in social dynamics, human psychology, etc.
| Someone whose voice in those areas is highly respected, not
| someone who read a few articles or a book and then
| translated it. We need more of a Carl Sagan of
| sociology/psychology/history who can integrate and explain
| these things.
|
| Any sufficiently complex topic and area of power needs
| checks and balances, people with different perspectives and
| backgrounds who help define the boundaries for discussion
| and consideration. My concern is we're always hearing from
| tech people; by default they have a seat at the table
| because they're in the seat of power in this domain. Their
| voices need no further elevation nor does their lack of
| expertise in relevant fields warrant it. We need their
| counterbalance.
| mdoms wrote:
| > There were, in fact, people who could have predicted this.
|
| Did they?
| avdempsey wrote:
| Do you have some recommended reading? I enjoyed reading Neil
| Postman's Technopoly, but any contemporaries you find
| particularly insightful?
| npunt wrote:
| I'd love to give you a long list but I don't have it - I
| just know what I don't know. I'm actively looking for more
| sources as I'm interested in working in this area, given
| its societal importance.
| seesaw wrote:
| I concur. My friends and relatives, who never cared about what
| I (a techie) said about online tracking, are all now trying to
| educate me about the harm done by google and Facebook.
| d3ntb3ev1l wrote:
| 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
| kontxt wrote:
| 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/interfa...
|
| Or here's a streamlined summary:
| https://www.kontxt.io/document/d/JdE8ujfZmPy3bIAiv-tZQXVWfVf...
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