Big tech industry professionals shine a light on the manipulation of social media in Netflix’s ‘The Social Dilemma’

Photo Courtesy of The Verge

“The Social Dilemma” premiered on Netflix in September 2020, and those who have not seen it need to watch it immediately. This documentary follows professionals who worked for Facebook, Google and Instagram as they actively warn viewers about the dangers of the social media that is present in everyone’s daily lives, sounding the alarm on their own creations. Many individuals who worked for and helped create these large tech industries were interviewed, including former Google ethicist Tristan Harris, Asana co-founder Justin Rosenstein and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier. These people once worked high up in the tech industry, but left for ethical reasons.

It is no surprise that social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others are addictive. Users of social media are typically aware that their information is not private and is being processed by these different applications. However, what “The Social Dilemma” reveals is that these industries are constantly monitoring users’ activity and using that information for profit. Manipulation of human behavior is encoded into the artificial intelligence behind these technological platforms.

In the documentary, Harris talks about how Google’s strategy is to get users to spend more time on their app. When users spend more time on the platform, they will then view more ads, resulting in more money for the company. Google does this by monitoring everything that people do on the platform: which accounts and posts are looked at, how often they’re looked at, when they’re looked at and even how long someone spends looking at something. This way, the company knows which ads will get each person to stay on the app longer and what kind of notifications will get someone to open the platform and spend time there. Unfortunately, this kind of automatic tracking can have negative consequences. For example, if someone were to spend a significant amount of time looking up ways to lose weight, there is an increased chance that the next time they are inactive on social media, a banner will pop up advertising unhealthy ways to lose weight, as the artificial intelligence knows that will entice the person to spend more time on that platform. The issue that many of the former tech employees in “The Social Dilemma” had was that no one was thinking about how this could affect people, especially children.

The age at which kids are getting on social media is becoming increasingly younger. The ramifications of this are dangerous, considering that their brains are still developing. It has been shown that social media heightens insecurity, anxiety, depression and even rates of suicide. The prevalence of young children on social media is creating a generation that is unaware of and normalizes the negativity and manipulation that social media perpetuates.

“How do you wake up from ‘The Matrix,’” Harris said, referencing the 1999 film, “when you don’t know you’re in ‘The Matrix’?”

These social media creators did not intend for their creations to be so detrimental, and some of them are calling for change.

“We built these things,” Rosenstein said, “and we have a responsibility to change it.”

However, the biggest problem these activists are finding is that the companies simply do not care about the dangerous ramifications of this type of human manipulation. A capitalist society runs on profit and these tech companies are fiscally minded. To the social media industry, the momentary profitable revenues of mining the human mind outweigh the lifelong trauma this can cause.

“We can demand to not be treated as an extractable resource,” Rosenstein said.

Harris co-founded the nonprofit organization Center for Humane Technology, which is focused on the ethics of consumer technology. According to their website, the organization’s goal is to create “radically reimagined technology infrastructure and business models that actually align with humanity’s interest.”

“The Social Dilemma” is a powerful documentary that brings much-needed attention to the hidden dangers and manipulation of social media industries. It has shocked viewers and perhaps even inspired society to make the necessary changes in order to prevent an existential technological crisis.