What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

This was my conclusion too. There were some genuine good parts, but most of it felt too hyped because the explanations were too flavorful and simplistic, or taken too far. It felt like I was watching The Secret or Zeitgeist.

> Rather than offer a nuanced look at technology, it gives a distorted view of how social media platforms work to create a convenient scapegoat for what are difficult and complex societal problems.

This sentence lacks the nuance that they criticize. While I think it's a fair position to state it gives a distorted view (due to simplification, for example), that doesn't mean they're creating (or intending to) create a convenient scapegoat.

> The film’s creators do not include insights from those currently working at the companies or any experts that take a different view to the narrative put forward by the film.

Well current employees have a lot to lose in being honest, if they disagree. And the documentary did have experts that had a different view that was actually telling a different story than the narrative. I was actually on the lookout for it, because I was upset with the simplistic cookie cutter bullshit it was feeding us.

---- Reacting to the points ----

1. They say they're making efforts to make responsible use possible. The issue with this is, we can't check this. So reputation and trust is all we can go on. So I'm putting this in the neutral category.

2.

> We don't sell your information to anyone.

Wasn't Cambridge Analytica a thing? If so, then I don't care if you sell or don't sell, info gets out there. It feels disingenious to put that sentence in there as a response to "you are not the product".

I agree that the mantra is nonsensical "you are the product". Uhuh, right, because it's short and sweet it must be true? Nonsense, all explanations that I've ever read that were true never devolved to mantra-like statements. IMO it's a "code smell" that something is off.

...

I'll stop here, this is getting way too long.

Long story short: Facebook is being questionable here at best, despite that I agree in general with them that The Social Dilemma is nonsense.

The incentives here are all warped :/

It's super easy to cherrypick data that backs your point. I'm sure "The Social Dilemma" did this too. If instead of looking at content, they looked at engagement (comments, likes, shares) then I think the political content would be much higher on the list.

Not only that, but they seem to focus on the steps they take rather than the results they had. Sure you can take some steps to reduce addictiveness or polarization, that doesn’t mean they had an actual effect nor take away the central argument that the documentary is making.