For those of us who've written about technology, generally, for quite a long time, any injection of the broader metaphysical/"ethical" conversation regarding the impact the industry has had/is having/is expected to have on our species into popular culture is both exciting

The Social Dilemma's Dilemma

The Social Dilemma.md

Social

so... you've just watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix and are deeply depressed/terrified about the internet.

well - especially for the grandparents out there - I made some comments I thought were necessary.

Notes

Two essential arguments:

The depiction of the tree Peter Campbell duplicates actively manipulating the dramatized teen user's device from a control room is blatantly misleading considering that - regardless of how extensive and detailed the data collected about your use may be - no human eyes are ever going to see it, much less actively alter your personal account's backstage preferences.

Neither the film, nor the film's website, nor even the website of the "Center for Humane Technology" embedded within it acknowledge the concept - much less the actual participants within - of alternatives to these services. In case you were not aware, there is a vast pool of alternatives to every service discussed in the film - from Gmail to Instagram - and many of them have been around for quite a long time.

• "You don’t just have a choice between using social media or not using social media - you have a choice of social medias. (And search engines, email clients, and on and on.)"

• "Occasionally misleading in what are probably positive ways for humanity."

• It is absolutely absurd and inexcusable that it took this long for a mainstream documentary to address this. Like honestly, what the fuck is True/False even for right now?

  • The film does do a quite effective job at depicting notification addiction - not sure if this is an appropriate place to discuss my own realizations as a result: that I have been largely weened off notifications after experiencing a moderate-severe such addiction in high school-post-high school years through a gradual reduction in the amount of engagement I get. Simply put: having no friends is technically an effective remedy to social mezdia addiction.
    • On a similar note: I am also more or less exempt from YouTube's grasp. For some reason, I basically became entirely uninterested with it around 2015. I still use Extratone's account as my main account, which is subscribed to a ridiculous number of channels. It's exceedingly rare for me to actually engage with an algorithmic recommendation.

• There is a very topical reason alternatives are not present in the mainstream discourse: the companies and their services they are often trying to disrupt are the ones who control the conversation. (e.g. Google Search.) However, the services and conversations can be found, if you're interested.

• GDPR is good, even if the single-click email opt-out footer link is all it ends up providing.

• Link to Parimal's Paris Web 2020 presentation.

• I genuinely believe turning off all notifications is a good way to proceed, especially if this film (or anything else, for that matter) has made you feel uncomfortable about your relationship with your phone. I realized that I'd somehow allowed YouTube to clutter my notifications unconsciously for years, which is disturbing. In general, the apps who's notifications I'd probably value the most (Bandcamp!) are the ones who use the feature the least/the most subtly.

• Even if the reformed developers present in this organization/film are aware that their way of thinking probably shouldn't be sought as the number one source of ideas on how to combat those who think exactly like them.

• Hilary Clinton brought it up on Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

  https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/3c8411b7-73ef-44fb-90d6-f78bba0f5785/Hillary_Clinton_on_The_Social_Dilemma.mp3

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