What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

Though there was hardly anything that I didn't already know, I liked the movie very much for its presentation that drove the point well to people who may not have understood how these platforms work, the privacy implications and the dangers therein. I've already recommended this movie to some more people.

As for the cultural impact of the movie, I don't think it's going to be much. Cambridge Analytica had so much news coverage during its time (along with public hearings by lawmakers and documentaries about it) and still did nothing material to the bottom line of these companies. They've actually grown bigger and become a lot richer since then.

1. Most people just wouldn't care enough to give up these platforms. While I've been enraged for a long time about these platforms, the big gap here is that there is no good answer to the question, "what are the better alternatives?" Don't tell me that Mastodon and Mastodon clones can be replacements for Twitter, Facebook, Facebook groups, Facebook events, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. Where are the nice(r) mobile apps (not just some website designed for desktops) for any replacements?

2. Governments will not regulate these platforms in meaningful ways that create fundamental changes. Regulatory capture is what's looming around, where the current biggies make the rules and ensure that nobody else can beat them.

I will keep pushing people to switch to better platforms (even if they seem deficient in comparison), but I'm sadly not very optimistic about big changes in the next decade or so.

I think what I think about docudramas in general: Hyperbolic. I think the harms of social media are exaggerated, and not entirely unique to social media.

I don’t have a problem with Facebook knowing what content I interact with and using that to serve me ads, or content that I want to spend time consuming. I don’t agree with the characterization of publishing or volunteering information (likes, posting photos, profile details) as private information. Facebook makes clear what information is public, what is shared to friends, etc. I think most people are relatively aware their interactions determine ad selection, as it is intuitive. It’s really not scary to me that Facebook knows which city I live in to target ads.

I don’t agree with the characterization of engineering apps to provide entertainment or social value as “manipulation” in the harmful sense. The fact that something is enjoyable to use or is used a lot isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and is not necessarily an addiction. To use another example, I would want game developers to “manipulate” me to enjoy playing a game. That’s the point. The fact that people spend lots of time on social media just demonstrates that they derive something from it, not that it’s addictive or harmful. Is social media a worthwhile use of your time? Maybe not. Is it an intrinsically harmful activity? No.

I think the Internet in general allows for the more rapid, selective spread of information, and that it lowers the cost of publishing. It follows that ideas can spread quickly, including conspiracy theories. I don’t agree that belief in pseudoscience, rumor, or superstition is anymore prevalent than it was before social media. I think it’s just more visible to everyone how many people do believe wacky ideas. Regardless, social media isn’t going to suddenly make me believe the moon landing was fake, so I don’t see it as being harmful.

In short, I don’t think ad targeting is harmful or violating my privacy. I don’t think social media is harmful but that passive consumption of media is not the best use of time, like video games or watching TV.

It was very ironic that Netflix, who once said that sleep is there biggest competition, releases a documentary about how it’s rivals in the attention economy are harmful.

Yes, Netflix doesn’t advertise directly to me, but many of the effects are still present. The way I think and behave can be changed by programming I watch on Netflix. Netflix uses a recommendation engine to keep me engaged. Netflix has implemented several design patterns to keep people engaged, such as auto loading the next episode.

It was specifically ironic for them to attack YouTube for kids while Netflix has a children’s offering, and most of the known downsides about screen time for children applies wether or not advertisements are present.

The funny thing is, i always wondered how it would have been to live in the 30s. Mass media, populist movements and all of that. I kind of get it now. Social Media is the new mass media And as the last time something similar happened, smart populists used it to their advantage, industry supplied the tools and we all know how it happened. Not saying we are heading the same way just yet, but the possibility exists.

One could have propably made the same documentary about radio and TV like 80 to a 100 years ago. Just watching the film now, thanks for posting this question, I could have missed it otherwise.

EDIT: The guy having invented the LIKE-button is right up there with the guy having invented FCKW. Not that he had any bad intentions. Which worries me, that when a group of people with good intentions is doing good things can create easily exploited, dangerous things in the wrong peoples hands.

I don't work on algorithm-driven platforms, but I built a tool [1] to help deal with them.

I'm very glad to see this reaching the mainstream. Like most people in the tech industry with some understanding of how these things work, I've been increasingly worried about the harms it's doing to myself, others and society at large. Once you've seen the damage it's doing, you can't unsee it. It drives me crazy that others can't see the same things.

However I think this film did a great job at conveying to non-tech people how the systems work and take advantage of them. I think of it a bit like those documentaries that expose the worst of the meat industry, where it's not uncommon for viewers to become vegetarians.

My optimistic outlook is that more and more people will wake up and turn their backs on these harmful things, and the era of Facebook etc will, thankfully, be over.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

Social media is this generation's smoking issue. One of the predictions made in this movie was that humanity will not be able to survive if we continue to be blinded by our own willful ignorance due to these addicting sources.

I think they hit the nail on the head that ultimately the goals of the platforms are at odds with your own intrinsic goals and the goals at large for society. Something is going to have to change eventually.

The problem is that many people, including my wife, are OK being shown ads. After watching the documentary, I uninstalled Instagram and logged off Facebook as I hated the thought of being manipulated. My wife (and her friends for that matter) though concerned over the impact to kids, was back on Instagram about an hour later. "I'm ok with all these ads, some are useful".

So though it should help parents navigate this better for their kids sake, I'm not sure it will impact everyone as much as we think it might.

I'm a fanboi! I found this film incredibly powerful (esp. the comments during the closing credits). I've become a real bore when chatting with friends and other parents about this subject. Now I can simply say "watch The Social Dilemma" and return to discussing the weather!

I found the tips on https://www.humanetech.com/take-control very helpful to interrupt my addition to my phone (particularly the monotone one).

I couldn’t help but thinking of the movie/documentary itself as an act of manipulation and an attempt to distract from the real issue.

The real problem is the way big venture capital is funding these companies. Allowing them to become so big, while suppressing all competition in order to concentrate profits. This is what has made these companies into the monsters they are now. In this era of big tech focus has shifted, IMO, from creating and implementing fair and simple common standards to , among other things, walled gardens and egregious bullshit wherein people don’t even own most things they’re paying for.

The act of manipulating others into situations that are favourable to yourself is not something new and has probably been practiced for centuries. The documentary, which I admittedly couldn’t force myself to finish, seemed to gloss over the big money aspect to focus (in the most cringe way) on the psychological manipulation aspect, which made its insights unoriginal and shallow.

It told me many things I already knew... but it enabled me to summarize them in a new way. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter,etc.. all exist to sell your attention to advertisers. This means they want to keep you on site for as long as possible. The algorithms used find the nearest rabbit hole, and gently push you in that direction. The hole might lead to a new skill, just plain fun, or could be horrible for you and society. They don't care about the effects, they only care about the profits.

Evil isn't the intent, it's just the side effect.

It was a good explanation of some issues with current social media platforms. But I don't think that ad driven business models and algorithmic content manipulation are the biggest problems we are facing in all this. The fundamental problem is we humans aren't wired to deal with information and social connection and this scale and speed. It's too easy for just about anyone to find and confirm anything they want to believe and so many others that believe it. On the other side of that coin it's too easy for anyone to reach an audience with whatever they want. Focusing on the algorithms and business models is a bit of hubris and a distraction from the harder problem of empowering mobs. I know people caught up in the conspiracy theories. They aren't finding them through Facebook. Some of it is through YouTube rabbit holes but a lot of it is just websites found through Google (which is really just popularity ranking) or text messages shared between friends & family directly. People have these biases and want to believe these things and the access to these easy tools of connection and communication are amplifying us. Maybe regulation, moderation, filtering and defensive algorithms can help? Maybe we will learn to deal with it better and society will change to accommodate it but it's becoming a rough transition at the least.

Like a lot of other people that replied, I enjoyed the documentary because it provided the information in a more accessible way. I think the documentary does a good job explaining the current harms of these companies, but I think the problem can be viewed more clearly through the lens of externalities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality). As discussed in the film, these companies curated feeds are shaping peoples realities and creating a more divided society. Like with most externalities, the way to account for this cost is through regulation. I think that a tax that increases exponentially with each ad served (over a certain period of time and then it resets) would be an interesting idea that could adjust the business model to not optimize for addictive behavior.

The movie does a great job at explaining the real problem behind our current version of online social networks. We need to start developing much more advanced systems that have the communication tools that Facebook and Instagram have, but also innovate on the financial markets/governance systems that the most advanced nation states have.

The is the only way out of this problem is to accept that governments and regulators are not going to be able to fix this, and create a new one that is owned by the people. And as you see from the movie, the chances of us hitting singularity with an AI coupled to an optimization function that domesticates humans for profit, is highly likely. It's probably one of the greatest challenges of our generation, and the hardest part is that over time the people you need to change the system are so addicted to the crack that it gives them, that they won't want to.

I do think movies like this are extremely important on getting the message out though, and hope that it enacts some changes. Me and a few engineers are working on a solution at social.network, let me know if you are interested in helping out.

I think movie will be pretty major, since it summarizes many points that people following it "know", but in one place. I essentially live and breathe this stuff at this point, and yet it is ridiculously hard to talk about.

You can see it in the start of the show - when people are asked what the problem is. Everyone's brains just stall with the scope and challenge of putting it into words.

It is great at explaining concepts and problems to people, which are very hard to discuss just using conversation.

I was discussing polairzation increasing since the year 2000, and the implications of that with someone. It took me almost an hour of discussion, to get an acknowledgement of the possibility.

One look at the Social Dilemma's animation on polarization trends over time? Never have to make that argument again.

Good movie overall.

I also suggest Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now , by Jaron Lanier

Jaron is in the documentary and makes additional points. Social Media is making you a jerk is a great one.

While he doesn't directly critique Online Dating, he does mention Catfishing and Ashley Madison being mostly bots. If you Google 'FTC sues Match' you'll find bots are very common across the industry.

At least now you can't detach online dating from social media , you need to get your matches to add you on Snapchat so you never actually meet anyone. Just off pure stats, people are more alone than ever before. By design it doesn't work for most people. And what company would want to lose subscribers ?

I found myself an anxiety filled 'lab rat' when using that junk. Deleted all my social media a year or so ago , and I've had no issue meeting great folks since.

Generally I go out to do things I want to do. Everyone that's joined me along the way, including a fellow .net programer, has been a bonus.

All that said, I see it getting much worse before it gets better. Social Media is eventually going to be regulated , but it's already destroyed a generation. Rates of suicide have exploded since Social Media became mainstream.

I'm actually worried about the similar issues with Google search results at the moment.

2 examples.

1) The new suggested answers on search results. As an example search for "is salt bad for you". The top results might be correct though I've seen other searched that I believe aren't (different searches). Under that is this new "People Also Ask" section listing all kinds of questions, each with a single answer. AFAIK the answers are just whatever Google's algorithms decided are the most popular. Given there is one answer for each question (and the one answer to the original search at the top), it all comes across as authoritative answers. I think if you try various search terms you'll quickly find lots of examples you vehemently disagree with the answers google is presenting.

I don't know why the previous style of results felt better but something about the previous style (the style below the "People Also Ask" section came across as "here's semi random answers from unknown sources so be aware" where as to me at least, the new top answers above that all come across as authoritative and that scares the crap out of me.

2) Basically the same issue but if you search for " in " google will give you one answer and in this case they will often claim "Community Verified" yet they are often flat wrong. Often the phrase is ambiguous so there can be no "one true answer" without more context and yet google presents the results as "this is the one true answer because it's community verified". This basically proves my point for #1 above. That fact that google shows these questions with just one answer seems like pure thought manipulation.

I was somewhat disappointed that the movie didn't much discuss the downsides of regulating social media, e.g. censorship, slippery slopes. like other commenters say, I didn't learn anything new, but I'm glad this kind of documentary is out in the open for non-technies to watch and consider.

It will have the same effect the DMCA did on piracy after Napster. That's what will happen. Even if the big companies come clean and start policing, that will just move the extremists who have already built their army into decentralized encrypted chat platforms, and they will still recruit over these tools too.

You've gotta basically build the entire Internet from scratch, with some kind of government and some kind of identification system so that if someone comes to take down social discourse they are removed from not just one platform but all of them and they can't come back without some kind of appeal. In addition, all political discourse held should be required to adhere to scientific and scholarly standards. I have no problem with people who aren't from institutions to challenge the status quo, sometimes that has benefits but if they aren't armed with a pile of evidence to prove why the status quo is wrong, they should not be amplified and that regulation should be central.

Until you have both of these things, anything else you do will be a waste of time. It will either become like some sort of Vegan alt-lifestyle or morph into yet a new set of big platforms. Both are untenable, as fixing this has to require the participation of the entire social system.

Doubtful it will have much impact. I don't buy the central premise of the film - social media is so addictive and people are easily manipulated by it - through the power of 'genius' algorithms that work against vast stores of data. There is no mention of freewill .. are we really so easily controlled? If this technology was so powerful and able to manipulate people - how are we not using it to end racism, effect climate change, teach basic math skills, fight obesity, etc. The reason is that the technology isn't that good - and at it's best it suggests things that appeal to our base nature. It doesn't control us or even come close. Also the fucking hubris of these people to think they really had that big of an impact is a bit much. Free will and human nature are real things and social media isn't that powerful. Also with free will comes personal responsibility - this film seems to suggest that we are such sad victims and the problem isn't us but the powers that be. I'm so weak that I can't help myself - so it must be social media's fault. Give me a break.

In every conversation like this I always bring up Cathy O'Neil's excellent Weapons of Math Destruction (https://www.bookdepository.com/Weapons-of-Math-Destruction-C...). I think it's an ethical must read for anyone in tech.

I personally never understood the value of ads. I subconsciously turn off my brain and press skip whenever I encounter any kind of ad because I know it was made to influence me into doing an action (and I don't want to waste any mental energy in evaluating whether I am being tricked or not). And most ads are bad:

https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/1304793136494006272

So to me the whole thing simply doesn't make sense, who actually did buy something from an ad?

The only signal I value for trying out (buying) new things comes from real people.

The privacy implications of storing so much personal data is the other question and that can be used for some bad things that isn't just serving ads. Would be nice to have a law for mandatary differential privacy for ad based social networks.

--

Perhaps I am losing out on ignoring all ads wholesale like that. I even sometimes put products that do 'a lot' of advertising in bad light and try to avoid them all together.

I was surprised that given where the movie went, there seemed to be little discussion of the idea of banning personalized advertising. While it would be difficult to stomach for the companies who've thrived on that business model, the social consequences and business incentives of personalized advertising are corroding our society.

Just about nothing new wrt content.

I remember I kept thinking how naive, imaginationless and without knowledge of history these people must be if they genuinely never thought critically about what they were doing – if no one ever saw any potential for abuse.

That, and the fact that they kept pushing unfounded conclusions, like correlation between diagnosed mental issues and appearence of social media allegedly pointing to a causative relationship; alleging that this thing is so "new" and "different" from any other tool that has played on weaknesses inherent in the human mind that we just can't deal with it, etc.

I tend to think proper education, including critical thinking skills (including logic and cognitive biases), critique of media, etc., as well as defining privacy clearer as a human right (including explicitly stating that data subjects own data about themselves) and enforcing this hard will solve many problems.

There's a great article with more technical exposition by Jeff Seibert, one of the interviewees: https://medium.com/@jeff_seibert/the-mechanics-and-psycholog...

I found it to be persuasive, but the after-school special vibe of between interview scenes was corny

I suspect there's a growing market for summer camps and other forms of tech hiatuses. I would gladly subscribe to a service that forced me not to use social media or whatever, since I don't think my own brain can be trusted with that

I think the presentation was kind of silly to be honest. I liked the talking to experts, etc...but when they had dramatizations it felt so forced and silly.

> What will the cultural impact of this movie be?

A few months back a bunch of big Facebook advertisers (nike, etc..) pulled back some of their ad spend to punish Facebook over their stance on certain cultural issues. What happened to Facebook? Nothing... Revenues actually went up...

Facebook is an incredible tool and platform. No platform (none amongst the FANGs) has the same capabilities of tailoring your internet experience like Facebook does. As an advertiser, this is incredibly powerful: being able to put a targeted tailored ad in front of exactly the demographic you want. No other platform even comes close.

The cultural impact will be zero. The dollars speak for themselves. FB users keep using the platform and advertisers will keep chasing them on it.

The only way to put this in check is for government to step in and put in a comprehensive set of laws and rules that governs how your data is shared. A market-driven response to Facebook's insidiousness will not happen by itself. Government needs to nudge it forward with a thoughtful set of policies that promotes competition and makes these big companies liable for the false information they promote.

I think everyone should watch it. I think there can be a lot of good done on a platform like Facebook, if it's goal wasn't to get you hooked. If it had real moderation of content.

The proliferation of fake and misleading information has clearly caused a lot of harm to the United States and I'm sure other countries as well.

I think it does a great job to explain to non-techies things I have explained for years withouth luck. Biggest points are about kids and explaining echo chambers. I live in a very polarized country where everybody justs follows the media and people who are on either of two sides. (Argentina)

Like most people here, I was already aware of the technical side (and I'm guilty of implementing several of the features such as infinite scroll).

The majority of users aren't giving up their addiction. I think that's a given. But I do hope parents are more aware of the effects on children.

It should be called something else besides ‘the social dilemma’ because Netflix also does this to make sure people watch nonsense as much as possible as well...

every company hiring the best algorithm developers want people to spend as much time as possible on their ‘thing’

not sure what to call this though...

In the first 10 minutes of the movie they talk about what happened after what seemed like a revolution at Google. It was essentially nothing. People will not care due to how convenient staying the same is. It's sad really.

I think the main takeaway was the influence on children. I don't think there's precedent for providing kids with constant access to dopamine-driven, socially adjacent experiences. At least with TV and video games, they're finite activities with time limits (hopefully).

Yet giving a pre-teen a phone where they're constantly being spammed with addictive content is dangerous. I can't even imagine all the psychological and developmental implications.

In terms of adults being addicted to apps and their data being used for ad-targeting...eh. User beware. I think we have bigger issues facing us.

I watched a little this morning with coffee. I am finding myself wanting to skip the scripted parts and just wanting to watch the interview parts. I'll try again to watch it when I have more time.

I wish they had presented more solutions. The way I see it, infinite scroll feeds generated by algorithms should be outlawed. Same with Like counts. (It seems Instagram has begun testing this https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/14/instagram-private-like-cou...)

Facebook wasn't that bad when you had to visit each person's wall or when the feed was in chronological order.

I see that on netflix's info page it calls it a "documentary drama hybrid". That's a weird but accurate description, because as a documentary it's too biased and makes me feel that it tries too hard to push it's agenda to me. I agree with most of it's points, I deleted my facebook account several years ago, but they way this "docu-drama" represents its points makes me unable to take it seriously, because there's just too much drama in it.

When I was watching it I was thinking in ways of fix these points in the users perspective and it seems to me that the user should use the same technology, to try to block this effects and help him to not fall short in this mind traps. His use of this tec would`t be binded to others interests like sell ads for instance, so maybe the system optimization could be better expressed for him. But I don`t know how a system like this could be implemented.

It was mentioned on my Nextdoor feed, so it has clearly reached even the tech novices :)

I haven't watched it myself yet, but I'm excited that it's getting such reach.

Honestly I dont think most people care about privacy or advertising. For me my biggest argument about SM (incl HN) is the sheer amount of time it sucks for very little long term benefit. I complain I dont have time to visit friends or do exercise but somehow I manage to spend way too my time on my phone, and that even is without Facebook or Twitter.

"We are more profitable to a corporation if we are spending our time staring at a screen, staring at an ad, than if we're spending our time living our life in a rich way." (Justin Rosenstein ~1:25:30)

This is ironic, because what is best for all of us as a whole and what is best for each individual - is that each of us are productive, helpful, and loving to one another.

However, what is more profitable in a short term for a single person (or entity) is what is often destructive to others (a drug dealer is a good example of making profit from the destruction of others).

Instead, we have to care about the long-term benefit and health of each person (our friends, family, community, and all humanity) and not just amass some money for ourselves so we can live selfishly.

Also, to be clear, I believe capitalism is a vital part of that - when it works with a win-win focus. (I innovate to provide a good and beneficial service that helps you, and you help me by providing me with resources I need, etc. - big win-win for everyone).

However, when we turn it to pure profit and divorce it from the human side of working together for mutual good, that is when it destroys instead of empowers. That is exactly why that quote above struck me.

If we use social media to enhance our human relationships, then it is beneficial. But if all we do is stay up late at night watching video after video of emotionally triggering content, then it's time to hit the delete button.

I doubt this will have the impact we wish it could have. Best case scenario some people with moderate the number of notifications they receive. Other than that I can't see anyone deleting their accounts because social media are so much interwoven into their everyday life.

I read Shoshana Zuboff's book Surveillance Capitalism, which was the jolt I needed to quit Facebook. Prior to those reveals, I was aware that the FB experience was more dark than fun; the reveals of the exploitation just nudged me into leaving, because I don't like being exploited.

Then I found and joined HN. It's a better experience. I think the guidelines make it so. They aren't 100% followed 100% of the time, but the intent makes HN a vastly better experience than FB.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

I'm tired of every few months we all have to rediscover how our complicated obsession with social media and the resulting data collection based advertising is leading to a total loss of individuality and privacy.

We (society) need to know these things and act according.

As a documentary film, I bailed after the first few interviews. The novelty of peeking inside internet giants was lost on me. Just felt like awkward confessions of some of my peers with ethical second-thoughts.

I also feel like one method was singled out amongst others: the facebook algorithm. Which exploits its proprietary model of the links between individual humans to boost signal. I don't use the product myself. But I have to ask, to those who do use it regularly, how can any of jaron lanier's darkest predictions come as any surprise?

If you are in the mood for a free doc feature that will utterly blow your mind, I can sincerely give a high rec to The Real Story of Paris Hilton. It's actually a real life horror movie that I found to have a similar energy to Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue. But non fiction ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOg0TY1jG3w

I think it's shallow, naive, simplistic, and achieves probably nothing, except making this particular narrative a more attractive social media loophole, and more money for netflix. It's based entirely on false premises.

Why was Netflix not there? How are they different from other addictive platforms?

there were many things in the documentary which I honestly did not know.Very educational and presented brilliantly.

I don't know what the cultural impact of this documentary will be since most won't care to change their behavior one bit. People are building walls around their echo chambers and are protective of it.

I was well aware of most of this and had been complaining lately about how I don't see there being a good ending in sight considering how much growth there seems to be in the extreme right and extreme left. I've been finding it harder and harder to have conversations with many people I know or even family because of their extreme stances on many of todays core issues. Most if not all of their positions or perceived understanding of these issues is straight out of their facebook echo chambers. They started with an ignorant stance and had all their thoughts and ignorance echoed and amplified back at them, empowering them to feel even stronger about it all. My feed is peppered with propaganda simply because I still bother to comment to family, trying to share facts, trying to pull them back a bit.. How can they not know better?? Right... The information never reached them, because they relied social media to get the initial news and once suckered in, they only seeked to confirm their biases.

There's no questioning why we're in the world we're currently in. Nothing about this is normal, especially when we claim to have access to information.

I know better, yet still find myself scrolling my feed robotically.. I had just scrolled it a bit ago, but, found myself scrolling it again. I didn't plan on it. I just had a blip in focus while I was watching something and my new programmed behavior was to pick up my phone and start scrolling.

When they say kids mental health severely affected, I'm not surprised one bit. I see it. My nieces and my gf's nieces are all hooked. I only see my nieces once or twice a year since we live pretty far from the rest of my family, but I was shocked to see they knew how to find content and how to operate my brothers iphone before they knew how to read. And if there was a youtube video they talked about, they knew how to find it again. Again, they couldn't read or spell yet..

My girlfriends older nieces are locked on tiktok. They determine how they feel based on others perceptions of their online accomplishments. All these kids are trying to become influencers. The feuds that arise, who collaborated with who, commented what on who, bullied them, etc etc. Bullying in schools is nothing new, but at least it used to have a schedule. You got bullied in the hallways at school, or around town, or during recess. Now, there's no turning it off. Kids get bullied around the clock, and some of it leaves a permanent mark online for every other kid to see. Thats not healthy for kids. They don't have a safety net once they get home.

Politics are a clusterfuck right now. One can't keep up with the events while trying to find the actual facts on everything and not simply believing everything being targeted at them. And we hope to have positive change soon? Come on.. As long as people can be bought, this is not going anywhere.

The one thing the documentary didn't touch on, and I guess its the cause of this in the first place, our capitalistic systems are unsustainable. Everything must grow, indefinitely. Every quarter, companies must meet their growth targets or take a hit. At first, you work on improving production, cutting waste. Then you optimize every other aspect you can. Eventually you cut corners, eventually thats not enough anymore so you outsource everything, move production to the cheapest place you can. Then all these tools are available to market your products in the most targeted way possible. Facebook et al don't care what you pay attention to, as long as you pay attention and they can throw ads at you. The companies will pour as much into this as they can get out. They'll squeeze every drop out of that lemon.

This whole system is like one big dirty coffee filter being wrung out too hard. Eventually it'll rip and people will fall out, civil war is definitely not that far out of sight. I think they touched accurately on the big picture and where things are headed if things don't change. Whats sadder is we know it, we see it, and we're unwilling to change it, because that would drastically affect finances of too many parties, and there's one thing that rules above all, and thats the all mighty dollar.

It was well done. It certainly understood how social media works far better than anything I've seen on HN. Which is interesting when you are aiming at non technical users.

The back end minions were well done as an explanation.

It did well to be bipartisan. "Extreme centre" was clever. Their examples were sometimes political but it's hard to know how to have bipartisan real world examples, but they seemed to try.

I think it'll have a far reach and it will affect people, but there's no solution, what would you protest and where?

"Gasland", "Waco: The Rules of Engagement", "Blackfish", "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" all seemed to be actionable for instance. It's easy to buy guns, or go to a protest or ditch your meds.

For "The Social Dilemma" it's hard to change everyday life and it's hard to legislate algorithms where no one knows how they work.