I think nowadays, the majority of us knows that there is something alarming with how social media affects our lives, yet doesn't really know how to express it. This post is my attempt to express it.
I would recommend everyone to see the documentary "Social Dilemma" BUT watch this video right afterwards as it sums up perfectly my criticism of the half-assed job the documentary does in explaining the phenomena. I am a strong believer that virtual world will be each time more and more intertwined with our real world experience and as an obvious conclusion, I think that raising awareness of how this interplays shapes our politics and communities is a paramount task. That is why I was very hyped when I discovered there is such a documentary in a streaming service with such a global reach. However, after watching it, I quickly became disappointed with how empty and full of platitudes it was. Allow me to elaborate:
The film correctly identifies the problem: the algorithms that learn more and more about our psychology to weaponise it against us to generate revenue. How is it done? By knowing us better, it can make us stay at their platform longer; this is by showing us the content that would maximise our interest and engagement... by exposing us to content we already are biased towards engaging with. This creates a huge digital eco-chamber and the effect is terrifying. Me and you, we can begin using the same service and being subscribed to exactly the same pages and content creators, but the posts that are fed to us will be slowly optimised until, in after some time, we will be fed a completely different combination of information. You can end up forming an image of the world that is completely nonsensical to my brain and vice-versa... despite having access to exactly the same news and propaganda sources.
So if they correctly expose this dilemma, what is my problem with it? Well, the absolutely dumb "potential solutions" that they pitch in there. They range from stereotypical boomer opinions of restricting your kids from using a smartphone until certain age until moronic comparisons such as "we should outlaw targeted advertisements just like we outlawed slavery and human trafficking". There is a silicon-valley dudebro who wants to make companies to pay taxes on each bit of data they gather. According to them, the big tech corrupts democracy and creates civil war but unless they pay a little bit of money to the government, it will suddenly be OK.
What I wrote above is just a rant about stupid opinions. But these aren't new. But here is something new, very suspicious and disturbing: a solution to big tech already exists. They are decentralised, privacy-focused apps and services that either work out of pure philanthropy or by donations and that DON'T build a personal profile of you. There was nothing said about these solutions and I refuse to believe it was because of ignorance. These are people working in silicon valley, saying they are tech savvy is an understatement. So the question is WHY they omitted mentioning practical solution to a feared social dilemma?
https://open.tube/videos/watch/9b54ba38-c26f-4691-a60f-d7846121b73b
