Author Topic: The Social Dilemma  (Read 1540 times)

Rupert

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The Social Dilemma
« on: October 12, 2020, 09:45:01 AM »
On Netflix.  If you have not seen it, its worth watching.

stuff we know here... but worth repeating.

took my understanding of the tech giants a step deeper.   
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Rumbas

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Re: The Social Dilemma
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2020, 03:04:21 PM »
Heh, a couple of friends saw it a while ago and gave me a lecture into retargeting, profiling, data mining, search history etc..

Hahaha, just said; "of course they do and have been for years. That's what's WE do every day". They almost fainted. A woman was ready to ban all SoMe on their kids' phones and cut the internet connection. She's spending hours on FB every day..

ergophobe

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Re: The Social Dilemma
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2020, 06:52:28 PM »
It's on my list, but I'm a regular reader of and listener to Tristan Harris, who I think of as the thought leader and I think he appears on the Social Dilemma.

See https://www.humanetech.com/

I also strongly recommend his podcast, Your Undivided Attention.

Personally, a few years ago, for me personally
 - I installed tracking blockers and ad blockers
 - closed my FB and IG accounts. I still keep my Twitter account because a very dear old friend likes to DM me interesting articles that way (several of which have gotten reposted here, BTW).
 - started donating or subscribing to media outlets in hopes that if enough people donate, the stranglehold of ad-supported media can be broken. As it stands now, "public" broadcasting in the US is 80% ad supported. The only broad circulation publication I can think of that derives no income from ads is Consumer Reports.

The watershed event was when my photo was used in an ad. It's a curious thing, but when it's your picture in the ads, you *really* see them. Over the next several years, I became more and more uneasy with the whole thing and it was without great sadness that I was finally terminated (after months of being laid off).

Now, I actually think many if not most forms of retargeting and data gathering should be made illegal to have it default to opt-in, but even that will only go so far. The root problem is optimizing for engagement, because nothing engages like anger and outrage. The effects are toxic from the personal cost (depression, anxiety) to the political costs (QAnon, Trump).

Tristan Harris had an interesting interview with a guy who studied newspapers as they shifted from subscription to ad-supported and how it led to a massive explosion in fake news (a six-part series on the moon from the astronomer with the largest telescope in the world who described the trees, flying bat-men and so forth on the moon, for example). But eventually, after resulting in wars and taking down democracies, a consensus emerged around a set of journalistic standards that mostly held sway until the rise of Buzzfeed, YouTube and Facebook.

BoL

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Re: The Social Dilemma
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2020, 08:25:35 PM »
Think it's an eye opener for the general public and as you say, nothing too revolutionary for people in our field.

I don't use any social media apart from browsing linkedin and occasionally posting. I'd have kept Facebook for local news but I find the average comments on news too annoying to come across, and too tempting to read. There's for surely a cross section of society that gets sucked in by the 'push' technology going on nowadays. Not sure of the solution, but abstaining from the platform helps me fine.

Rupert

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Re: The Social Dilemma
« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2020, 07:30:16 AM »
Shared, and will listen.  I had never heard of him before.

There is way to much Instagram and facebook in our family.
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ergophobe

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Re: The Social Dilemma
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2020, 11:24:34 PM »

Rupert

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Re: The Social Dilemma
« Reply #6 on: October 14, 2020, 06:53:40 AM »
Ah, I had forgotten that!
... Make sure you live before you die.