“The Social Dilemma” Doc on Netflix

Tried watching it, but once I realized the cheesy dramatizations were with us for the whole movie I noped out.

I haven't seen that one yet but I recently read Cal Newport's 'Digital Minimalism' and it really is amazing just how much social media is set to up to basically monopolize our attention the way a slot machine does. 

The main difference between tobacco and Facebook is most people know how bad tobacco is for you. 

No technology introduced within class society is going to be immune from the contradictions of that society. The ruling elites, which own the means of production, make use of the technologies, to the extent they can, for their own selfish, oppressive purposes. No one with a brain is blind to the harmful and even anti-social sides of digital technology and social media, including the rubbish put out by corporations and the media itself, the potential for ultra-right elements to organize and the enhanced ability of the authorities to spy on the population.

However, the capacity of billions of human beings to become connected in “real time” and respond to social and political developments, and ultimately intervene to transform society in a revolutionary fashion, that is, the inherently subversive character of these new media—it’s this that keeps the representatives of the establishment everywhere up at night.

In that sense, the stance of the filmmakers and their subjects in The Social Dilemma is part of that general hostile, anti-democratic attitude. These people see the real danger of their comfortable apple cart being overturned.

The country has always been divided. Social media amplifies it, but the division had been there since the Revolution.

MGoWife and I watched it last night, and it was eye-opening.  At work, I deal with algorithms nearly every day - gov't agencies are implementing them as quickly as they can, and trying hard to improve what they already have.  However, it's clear to me now that gov't is decades behind what Silicon Valley is doing.  I mean, we always knew gov't was behind the curve, but I had no idea it was that far behind.  There is no way Congress will ever learn enough to understand what's happening in the time frame it has to learn (the House is re-seated every two years and has to start over).

The only social media I've ever had is FB, and I'll keep that account.  I live 600 miles from my closest family member, and my wife is 150 miles away - we are as isolated from family as any adult couple (with a child) could be.  FB has been invaluable in not only keeping track of, but watching my nieces/nephews (and their children) grow up.  I don't read any news that comes through FB, and if something does interest me it must be from a reputable source.  I will check 'mediabiasfactcheck.org' as a reference on what sites are believable, but I mostly stick to sites I trust.

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat... 

add mgoblog to that list 

Been saying for years, 15?, that modern technology would be the downfall of western civilization. Thought I was kidding. My family just attributed it to my general cynicism and crankiness. Hope I was wrong.

We had this discussion a while back and I agree watching was an eye opening experience. 

This isn't the first time I've read similar reviews to this documentary and the thing that surprises me more is the degree to which people didn't understand this stuff. The internet is really just a bunch of islands of data opportunity and a lot of the way things are structured, and the business acquisitions/mergers that occur these days are centered around being able to bridge these islands together to be able to tell a more complete, unified story with that data. It is equal parts fascinating and terrifying.

If this interested you I would also recommend "The Great Hack" which details how the Trump campaign used these social media data points to craft political strategy.

They had a similar documentaryast come out, not a whole lot of attention was paid to it, but very much as intriguing.  It involved Cambridge Analytica. Unsure if the title at the moment. But if you searched for Cambridge, I bet it would show up.

It's an excellent dive into a very, very serious issue, but, wearing my film critic hat, I would've preferred a straight up documentary without the dramatizations which struck me as out of place and a little hokey.  Besides, how much more drama do you need when an interview subject instantly says that the worse thing that can come out of the algorithms is merely civil war.

Is this the same as Dr. Pimple Popper?

It's an excellent doc.  Though I was already aware of most of the facts they talk about, it was good to have been reminded of them.   I have not deleted my accounts because I have a huge extended family who are spread out all over the world and I live far away from all of them, so social media is a way for me to stay in contact with them more easily.

Another thing to remember is that as self-serving as these social media companies are, it's a bit of a cop-out to put all the blame on them.

We ourselves have control as to how we decide to use them.  No one is forcing you to follow those hyper-partisan pages and no one is making you re-post things that are easily proven to not be true. 

We need to figure out a way for people to be able to select and train their own algorithms. Otherwise we'll continue to have an escalation of this problem.

Opting out isn't an option because when the vast majority of social political action continues to migrate online, ignoring it basically means not knowing what's going to happen next (even to people not online) and not having input in societal level decisions.

Man, I hope we can find a way to stop dividing people

The solution is easy; don't use social media apps.  I only use Facebook to post fun pictures of my children so their grandparents can see what they're up to.  I don't have Twitter, Instragram, or any of those other platforms, and my life is plenty full without them. 

I realize how glib and Pollyannaish that answer is, but sometimes the correct action is the easiest.

I watched this back in September and now I only use FB for messenger and have been trying to cleanse Twitter and Instagram as well. I will say life is wayyyy better without FB. Since I have a newborn and I want to keep pics up for the family I downloaded some family album app and just invited relatives there. Twitter is great for sports information but it also turns ugly very quickly.