The Social Dilemma — The Netflix documentary that has everyone’s attention despite any novelty factor

Since its release, The Social Dilemma has amplified the conversation around social media platforms and the role algorithms play in our lives now. The irony is not lost that majority of you reading this are coming from one of the many social media platforms that the Netflix documentary is advocating to get rid of; or how the streaming platform operates and promotes content itself.

Former insiders of some of the key digital platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google and Youtube featured in the documentary highlight that starting out they were of the opinion that these platforms were a force for good in the world and didn’t really consider the flip side of the coin.

The flip side is what we are living through and it is something that has had a major impact on the public discourse. As the social media companies started to grow, their business model started to work around giving personalized experience to individual users to ensure that they keep coming back. Spending more time of the platforms meant more money for these companies. Like Tristan Harris, President and Co-founder of the Centre for Human Technology said in one of his interviews post release of the documentary (in which he himself features), is that the personal profiting of these companies shows results on the balance sheet of the society.

What the use of algorithms to personalize user experience did was to show content to people that is engineered to their view point, just reinforcing it and further adding to it, instead of showing factual information that might get them to rethink their stance. This factor has snowballed into the age of fake news that spread like wildfire contributing to polarization in the world.

This documentary however, is not the first place that you will come across this information. We have known for some time now how the advertising model of social media works and how algorithms and AI are being used to monitor our virtual behavior and molding content we get to see accordingly. Given that we are not the paying customers, so our data and by extension our attention span is the product that is being sold by these platforms to make money.

Within a week of its release The Social Dilemma was in the top ten list of Netflix. It even stayed in the top ten viewed content list in Pakistan as well. So why has this documentary that is not really sharing “brand new information”, got everyone’s attention?

What the documentary lags in the novelty section, it makes up in the focused narrative and dumbing down its presentation to a level that anyone can understand the social media mechanism (even the generation that struggles with getting the hang of it). While the documentary rightfully highlights how social media companies have become the face of big tech and the problems that they have contributed, there are mixed opinions about the solution that it presents, that is getting rid of the apps.

For some time now there has been a debate around managing screen times and how the younger generation specifically is addicted to it. However, as history has proven time and again reversing technological advancement is not the way forward. Neither is letting these tech giants go unchecked. There is needs to be a proper system of checks and balance that ensures that these platforms are held responsible for the content that is being put up and the content engineering mechanisms that they use. The Social Dilemma’s timing fits in this environment and the biggest plus of this documentary is how it can contributes in the discourse and helps in highlighting the fact that the society can only benefit from technology when it is people centric and gives a window into the damage it is capable of when is solely focused on profitability for a few individuals.

Originally published at https://pk.mashable.com on September 30, 2020.