{"id":170214,"date":"2020-10-12T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=170214"},"modified":"2020-10-09T09:52:28","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T08:52:28","slug":"the-social-dilemma-sounds-alarm-on-social-medias-dark-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/10\/the-social-dilemma-sounds-alarm-on-social-medias-dark-side\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Social Dilemma\u2019 Sounds Alarm on Social Media\u2019s Dark Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

8 Oct 2020 – <\/em>\u201cThe Social Dilemma<\/a>,\u201d a new documentary that explores the dark side of social media, has been a hot topic online<\/a> since its Netflix<\/a> release in August. Directed by Jeff Orlowski<\/a>, the movie makes the case that widespread use of social media has led to a decline in mental health and an increase in political polarization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Social Dilemma\u201d gives a history of the social media industry through the eyes of former Facebook, Google and Twitter company executives and software engineers who all agree on this one point: The industry has lost its way.<\/p>\n

Social media was designed to do good, the former insiders say. It was intended to provide everything from everyday conveniences, such as ordering a car on a smartphone, to life-changing solutions, such as finding an organ donor online. But those goals have been subverted, they say, to the point where the industry has created \u201cmonsters,\u201d rather than tools for the common good.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was there, I always felt like fundamentally, [social media] was a force for good. I don\u2019t know if I feel that way anymore,\u201d said one former industry executive. \u201cNobody, I deeply believe, ever intended any of these consequences,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n

Here are six insights former Silicon Valley insiders offer into how the social media industry has lost its way:<\/p>\n

1. Profit, not user experience, now drives social media functionality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Success for a social media firm requires keeping people on its platforms for as long as possible, according to former industry employees. That\u2019s how social media companies attract advertisers \u2014 and advertisers, not \u201cusers,\u201d are social media\u2019s most profitable customers.<\/p>\n

What do social media companies \u201csell\u201d to advertisers? Eyeballs and data, for sure. But according to celebrity computer scientist Jaron Lanier<\/a>, social media\u2019s most valuable \u201cproduct\u201d is behavioral change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior. That\u2019s the product. It\u2019s the only product. There\u2019s nothing else on the table that could possibly be called the product. That\u2019s the only thing there is for them to make money from.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Social media firms want your data \u2014 and will do anything to get it<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because social media corporations sell the promise of behavior change, they need troves of data to create accurate behavior-prediction models. \u201cEvery single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded,\u201d said Jeff Seibert, who formerly worked for Twitter.<\/p>\n

To maximize data collection, social media companies need more people to visit their sites, and they need them to visit more often, and stay longer. Companies accomplish this by using psychological tricks of the trade designed to manipulate user behavior.<\/p>\n

To illustrate how this works, \u201cThe Social Dilemma\u201d shows a dramatic reenactment of a teen who tries not to use his phone for a week, but who ultimately gives into temptation after one notification about his ex-girlfriend. The movie submits that social media companies send such notifications often. \u201cYou\u2019re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology,\u201d said Sean Parker, a former Facebook employee. \u201c[We] understood this consciously, and we did it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Social media\u2019s \u2018addiction-by-design\u2019 model damages mental health<\/strong><\/p>\n

The movie shows that the \u201caddiction- and manipulation-based\u201d technologies deployed by social media companies can be devastating. Children who spend their free time on social media are more likely to be anxious or depressed, as evidenced by the upward trend in self-harm and suicide rates for young people.<\/p>\n

According to social psychologist Jonathan Haidt<\/a>, social media use is to blame for these disturbing trends. \u201cThese services are killing people and causing people to kill themselves,\u201d said Tim Kendall, formerly with Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Social Dilemma\u201d also describes the \u201cSnapchat dysmorphia\u201d phenomenon<\/a>. That\u2019s when kids say they want plastic surgery to alter their faces so they\u2019ll look more like Snapchat filters. The film also points to the loss of real communication, as illustrated by a scene featuring two high school friends sitting side-by-side, engaging with their phones \u2014 but not with each other.<\/p>\n

4. Social media\u2019s fostering of political polarization erodes critical thinking skills<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just our mental health that\u2019s suffering under social media\u2019s profit-driven \u201cattention-extraction model,\u201d according to the film. Social media is also diminishing, intentionally, our critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n

The documentary cites a recent poll showing the U.S. is more divided than ever, and that people who identify strongly with one political party often perceive the political views of members of opposing parties as a \u201cthreat to society.\u201d<\/p>\n

This polarization, according to the film, results from social media companies limiting the political content users see in their news feeds almost exclusively to content closely aligned with an individual\u2019s own political preferences. Companies calculate that these posts are likely to keep an individual user online longer, and deploy them accordingly. As a consequence, intended or otherwise, users develop a false sense that everyone agrees with them.<\/p>\n

The industry practice of tailoring political news to individuals\u2019 personal views has another consequence: Because everyone sees different information, everyone operates from a different set of facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen that happens at scale, you\u2019re no longer able to reckon with, or even consume information that contradicts that worldview that you\u2019ve created,\u201d said Rashida Richardson<\/a>, director of policy research at AI New Institute.<\/p>\n

While \u201cThe Social Dilemma\u201d addresses the negative impact on humans of social media\u2019s manipulation of online political content, the film fails to address who, besides advertisers and social media companies themselves, benefits from this strategy. It\u2019s worth noting that loss of critical thinking skills and the inability to \u201chear the other side\u201d are direct benefits to corporations intent on containing social movements that are critical of bipartisan corporate influence over politicians and policy.<\/p>\n

5. Social media thrives on spreading \u2018fake news\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another byproduct of social media\u2019s \u201cattention-extraction model,\u201d according to the documentary, is the \u201cfake news\u201d phenomenon. \u201cFake news on Twitter spreads six times faster than true news,\u201d said Tristan Harris, a former Google employee.<\/p>\n

The film points to COVID-19-related content \u2014 for example, the claim that drinking water can flush the virus out of the human body \u2014 to illustrate the potential harm that can come from circulating misinformation on social media. \u201cPeople have no idea what\u2019s true, and now it\u2019s a matter of life and death,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n

But who decides what constitutes fake news, misinformation and conspiracy theories? Terms like these automatically imply a lack of truth, when sometimes the issues they\u2019re intended to describe are complex and politically charged, as opposed to just true or false.<\/p>\n

For instance, in its discussion of \u201cfake news,\u201d the film lumps together claims like \u201cChinese food gives people the coronavirus\u201d and \u201cThe Earth is flat\u201d with any content that questions vaccine safety. The notion that anyone can get COVID-19 by eating Chinese food can easily be dismissed as a silly internet rumor. It\u2019s quickly labeled \u201cfake news,\u201d and once that happens, social media algorithms grab it and hide it from view. That\u2019s okay. Nobody is harmed and nobody misses out on important content that might be educational or helpful.<\/p>\n

But can we say the same for posts about vaccine safety, a complex topic made controversial by the fact that Big Pharma has a huge financial stake in the public\u2019s opinion of vaccines?<\/p>\n

The film implies as much when, in order to illustrate the \u201cdanger\u201d of social media, it uses a reenactment scene of a teen who goes to an extremist rally after being shown conspiracy-style posts online. Spliced into the film\u2019s fictional reenactment are scenes from footage taken at real vaccine-related rallies, showing signs reading \u201cIf there is risk, there should be choice\u201d and \u201cVaccines are not one size fits all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the protest reenactment scene from the film sends the message that all vaccine-related posts \u2014 including legitimate posts from parents of vaccine-injured children, citing credible science \u2014 belong in the \u201cfake news\u201d category. In reality, thanks to the influence of the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry, any social media post that dares question the safety or efficacy of vaccines, risks being labeled, at worst, \u201cfake news,\u201d and at best \u201cmisinformation.\u201d Once that happens, the posts are often hidden from most news feeds.<\/p>\n

Although the film suggests that only those who go down some rabbit hole of crazy conspiracies end up at protests \u2014 like that teen depicted in the reenactment \u2014 in fact, real-life protests against mandated vaccines, nuclear weapons, police brutality, leaders plundering the planet for profit, bank bailouts and income inequality are all full of real people. It\u2019s wrong to assume these people are always misinformed and by doing so, the movie falls prey to the very concept it criticizes elsewhere: promoting profit-driven agendas.<\/p>\n

The movie doesn\u2019t mention that \u201cfake news\u201d and \u201cdisinformation\u201d designations can be used to demonize information that strays from mainstream corporate narratives, and that social media companies already use anti-fake news policies to suppress whistleblowing and alternative media reporting. These fact checkers<\/a> are not always unbiased, as Children\u2019s Health Defense has<\/a> reported<\/a> on numerous<\/a> occasions, because social media companies like Facebook compete for Pharma ad dollars just like TV networks do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Social Dilemma\u201d is correct to point out that Facebook is a great tool for \u201ccontrol of the population.\u201d But we don\u2019t have to \u201cimagine what that means in the hands of a dictator,\u201d as the film proposes. In the U.S. people live under what the late political philosopher Sheldon Wolin called an \u201cinverted totalitarianism,\u201d where the dominant narratives are crafted not by one individual dictator, but by corporations and their steady influence on media organizations and government representatives.<\/p>\n

In response to \u201cThe Social Dilemma,\u201d Facebook proclaimed<\/a> that \u201cmisinformation about COVID-19\u201d is being \u201cremoved outright.\u201d This likely includes content from Children\u2019s Health Defense. In fact, Children\u2019s Health Defense sued<\/a> Facebook earlier this year after the company\u2019s \u201cfact-checking\u201d program repeatedly censored the organization\u2019s posts.<\/p>\n

While the social media industry now faces criticism for being a vehicle for the spread of COVID-19-related disinformation, just months ago it had a similar PR problem regarding election disinformation. In response, Facebook entered into an anti-disinformation partnership<\/a> with the Atlantic Council, a think tank funded<\/a> by NATO, weapons contractors and oil companies. Whatever one thinks of these entities, it\u2019s a given that they\u2019ll be biased toward war and militarism.<\/p>\n

The movie also fails to address the fact that conspiracy theories themselves can serve a corporate agenda. Consider the conspiracy theory of 5G causing COVID-19. As Children\u2019s Health Defense pointed out<\/a> in April, \u201callowing [telecom] companies to focus the debate on COVID-19 has given them pretext to censor discussion of 5G and to shift the debate to a battlefield where the science is hypothetical and weak.\u201d<\/p>\n

One can see how corporations like Verizon and AT&T might favor spreading the \u201c5G causes COVID-19\u201d conspiracy theory as a distraction: Many consumers may mistakenly conflate legitimate criticism, based on peer-reviewed evidence of harm caused by wireless radiation, with the baseless conspiracy theory. This isn\u2019t just an accidental result of the \u201cattention-extraction model.\u201d It\u2019s a deliberate strategy condoned by a profit-driven industry.<\/p>\n

6. Should social media be regulated to curb its negative impact on society?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Social Dilemma\u201d suggests regulation as the solution to the systemic problems inherent in today\u2019s social media industry. But is that realistic?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no fiscal incentives for these companies to change. And that\u2019s why we need regulation,\u201d said Joe Toscano, a former Google employee. Jason Rosenstein, a former employee of Google and Facebook, put it this way: \u201cFor so long as our economy works in that way and corporations go unregulated, they\u2019re going to continue to destroy trees \u2026 Our attention can be mined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff<\/a> takes this argument a step further by suggesting that buying and selling human behavior prediction models should be outlawed.<\/p>\n

In theory, regulation could counter at least some of social media\u2019s bad behavior. But the effectiveness of a regulatory strategy will hinge on who shapes future regulation. As long as corporations wield nearly unlimited power over Congress and regulatory agencies, it\u2019s likely social media companies will end up \u201cregulating\u201d themselves, as is the case with many other industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current situation exists not for the protection of users, but for the protection of the rights and privileges of these gigantic, incredibly wealthy companies,\u201d said Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook. Alex Roetter, a former Twitter employee, pointed out the obvious: \u201cAt the end of the day, you\u2019ve gotta grow revenue and usage quarter over quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

What can individuals do unless, or until, Congress or regulatory agencies crack down on social media firms? The movie tells viewers to turn off notifications, avoid clicking on videos that YouTube \u201crecommends\u201d and limit screen time for children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Social Dilemma\u201d provides valuable insight into how social media companies manipulate their users\u2019 emotions, behavior and opinions. However, the film leaves out much about who benefits from these tools. Still, this documentary can grow our understanding of how social media firms function in our increasingly digital society.<\/p>\n

Watch the trailer here:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uaaC57tcci0&feature=emb_logo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

____________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Jeremy Loffredo is a reporter for Children\u2019s Health Defense.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – childrenshealthdefense.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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