The Social Dilemma

     

    I was instructed to watch this film last year during a class as well and I have never forgotten it since then. The Social Dilemma is a film/documentary that investigates into social media and into why we see what we see on our social media platforms. This documentary interviews past employees of these major social media platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Google. The Social Dilemma investigates into artificial intelligence and algorithms that control one's social media. These past employees explain facts about these companies that are not publicly known. However, this documentary sheds light on what goes on behind the scenes of these companies. 

    This film also examines the life of Ben. Ben is a young teen who ends up falling into the cycle that these major companies want their consumers to fall into. Ben is engulfed into the algorithm these companies put into their system. When Ben stops using an app for a short period of time, the AI knows to send a signal to Ben to get him back into the use of the app. This is what freaked me out the most. There are millions of people using these social media platforms, but the AI that runs behind the scenes knows how to get the attention of every single person. 

    A big portion of this film also looks into what is the most interactive content and what gains the most attention. Come to find out, the information that is the most popular is misinformation and conspiracy theories. Users love to interact with misinformation and it makes the social media platforms more money than the truth does. This film looks into many more dark truths about social media and overall, this film is scary. It shows society what these companies are doing to us, but most of us don't even seem to really care.

Here is a short overview of the documentary that highlights the key points throughout the movie and shows us what these companies are really doing to us:

“This Has Gone Way Too Far”