The Social Dilemma is disappointing.
Netflix released a new documentary about the internet, again!
Dear Friends
I know every celebrity on Twitter or Instagram is urging you to watch this movie and probably all your friends might also recommend you to watch this, if not just open your Netflix account and Netflix must be recommending you this movie. Wow, that’s an irony, Netflix recommendation talking about a movie which says how the recommendation algorithms of social media platforms are destructive.
One second, is it a possible that these celebrities are paid to put out these tweets by Netflix and instead of running ads on Facebook they want to try this route? Eventually if you are a die hard Farhan Akhtar fan, you end up watching this movie and boom, you are converted!
On the internet, you can never know if somebody is indirectly selling a product to you or is genuinely sharing an opinion.
I have known brands run Influencer Campaigns with IG Influencers asking them to put ‘this is not an ad or a sponsored post’ and if they do that, the Influencers will be paid extra. So practically we can never know what is the the real story behind something unless we actually know that person in real life. Well sometimes knowing them in real life also might not work because they must have signed a confidentiality agreement with the brand.
Social Media started as a way to connect with college friends or family in general but
Today, social media is not just a platform to connect with friends or family, it has become a sales funnel for brands and organisations.
And the problem is not because of their algorithm or because of the advertisement monetisation model as said in the documentary. Even if you remove the ads from the platform everyone will become an advertiser. Everyone will be selling you something and you will never know what is a genuine opinion and what is a marketing campaign, because marketers today definitely know all those ‘Growth Hacks’.
Exactly that is what will happen when these platforms change their monetisation model from advertisements to something else.
So what can these platforms do if not advertisement model?
Let’s take for example a subscription based model where the users will pay using the platforms. Twitter for example was thinking about a subscription model where you access some of their premium features and you will have to pay a small fees, but we never heard again about this from them, here is an article if you want to read about it.
The movie also said that because of social media platforms there is extensive spread of misinformation but misinformation was present in the age of books and newspapers too. It exists even today on NDTV, RepublicTV and probably every other channel which calls itself a media channel. Misinformation exists even in our real life when we lie to our parents or partners or friends or to anybody else on this planet including plants and animals.
There can never be 100% true reality till human beings exist because human beings probably are the smartest and the stupidest thing happened in this evolution.
Look at climate change or civil wars or anything else, these problems never existed, they were created by us and by us I mean human beings.
Similarly the tech companies can build a perfectly clean model but human beings will always find a way to fuck it up.
But why I feel the documentary is disappointing?
I have been following Tristan Harris and his work for more than a year now and trust me when I say this, nobody was more excited about this movie than me, but this movie doesn’t say anything apart from what is already mentioned on their website Center for Humane Technology or on their podcast Your Undivided Attention
The movie is like a video format of the text mentioned on their website but this time they have testimonials from ex-employees of these tech platforms.
In fact what is even more disappointing is that it nowhere mentions about the fact that while there is spread of misinformation on these platforms, they have been so helpful to small business owners across the globe. They have helped people to pursue their passions and even help people find their partners.
We built an entire community of 30,000 artists with the help of these social media platforms and they never charged us a rupee for doing that.
They help NGO’s raise funds or help you connect with politicians and authorities to help you with absolutely anything.
Before these social media platforms existed, you had to write letters to companies or college professors or actually go meet them at their office wasting hours of your time, but now you can drop an email to anybody in this entire world. Yeah, you can drop an email to Mark Zuckerberg himself if you have some problem with him or want to appreciate him or want to get a job at Facebook.
More importantly, Gmail never charged a single penny for helping you connect with clients or help you store your millions of photos or get you that 15 GB drive space for which they need to buy hundreds of Supercomputers.
Forget about Gmail, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook and it allows you to video call with your family and friends anytime, absolutely anytime, this service is priceless but for them it’s hell expensive. In the pandemic I celebrated my birthday by having my sister on the video call with absolutely no lag in the video while we were singing Happy Birthday Pawan, May God bless you…
Now Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to run a charity for sure and you don’t want him to run ads, so if he starts charging you for every call or message that you send on whatsapp are you willing to pay him? If you answer ‘YES’ to this question think about the underprivileged section of the society that the ‘woke audience’ constantly talks about. It will be just like how we had to pay the telephone companies to even receive phone calls (90’s kids must be knowing this, if you are Gen Z then not sure if you know about Uninor or Hutch or BSNL)
I completely agree to the point when they say in the film that “If you are not paying for the product then you are the product” but how can you build a product for the entire globe with such diverse cultures and still keep it free for use?
We talked about Tristan Harris and his work on our community IG page in January 2020, here is the video and it has 5000 views approximately, nobody bothered about it back then but now because this topic is out on mainstream media then everybody is giving attention to share their half-baked opinion about it. But read this
The thing that was most disappointing about The Social dilemma documentary was that, they choose to release this movie on Netflix which is another tech giant which wants to grab your attention as much as possible.
Netflix has said that ‘Sleep’ is our biggest competitor because people cannot Netflix when they sleep, here is an article if you want to read about it.
Plus in the below video, Tristan Harris himself says that Netflix Design is already making decisions for you when they play the next episode automatically or how they curate their top list.
Netflix addiction is real and we are entertaining ourselves to death.
For all these multiple reasons I think this film was a disappointment.
You can watch The Great Hack on Netflix which is a way better documentary to understand how the advertising algorithm of social media platforms is polarising the internet or you can read the book ‘Trust Me, I’m Lying’ or ‘How to win an Indian Election’.
But I would love to read your comments about post, so just reply to this email or leave a comment from the below button. Remember in the movie Cathy O'Neil says towards the end, “I follow people on Twitter who I disagree with just so that I know what they are talking about and what do they think”, totally fine if you disagree with my views but I think all different opinions can co-exist.
“Cable channels dedicated to science, history, or “reality” are rife with pseudoscience, deception, and conspiracy. Modern social networks have magnified all the worst parts of existing culture. Fixing that can’t simply mean condemning Facebook. Instead, we have to treat it as one part of a much bigger problem. And more importantly, we need to imagine what comes after it.”
“It's crazy to notice that a Netflix documentary was needed to make you aware about this toxic relationship you are having with social media, all you could have done is just read the 'Terms and Conditions' and 'Privacy Policy' before creating an account. But who has got the time to read such a long boring landing page right?”
“It’s easy to blame the tech giants because people love to see the rich fall, it becomes a good story”
What I was reading or watching this week?
How to be kind on the internet? Honestly, ‘WE’ are the internet, the users make up the internet so it’s our responsibility as well to have the internet as a safe space. We don’t need an enforcement by the government or tech platforms.
This video explains about the advertisement model of the internet better than the movie, what a disappointment Tristan Harris, I am so disappointed that I will write the word ‘disappointed’ 170382028 times in this newsletter.
4. Check how really advertisement has evolved in the last 60 years
5. Service for Healthy Use of Technology (SHUT) clinic at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (Nimhans) in Bengaluru received its first case of Netflix addiction in the country, which involves a 26-year-old unemployed man who turned to the video streaming platform to escape from reality for over six months. Read this article here.
6. Online tools like Facebook and WhatsApp were a blessing during this pandemic and not just the tool but they as a company have also been doing enough for the society.
How will we know such stories if we did not have social media?
This aunty from Pune is an inspiration to many. Well done Ma'am. Shame on Bikers who ride on footpaths. It's sad to see senior citizens have to do the job what traffic police is supposed to do in our country. @nnatuTOI @mumbaimatterz @MNCDFbombay @mid_day8. Do you think we will have access to such videos or the hundreds of dog videos that we see from across the world if social media was not created?
9. Google Chrome Extension tells you all about the ads you get.
Emotional inception is one (proposed) mechanism, but in fact there are many such mechanisms. And they're not mutually exclusive: a typical ad will employ a few different techniques at once — most of which are far more straightforward and above-board than emotional inception. Insofar as we respond to these other mechanisms, we're acting fully in accordance with the Homo economicus model of human behavior.
11. How do you get people to vote for the election in America? Via artists on Instagram!!
12. If you really want to get deeper into the matter of this argument around ads monetisation, read this article about some future experiments about FB ads.
13. TikTok is paying its creators but creators are greedy af so they are crying about it.
14. YouTube is building Shorts, be ready for another TikTok.
15. Facebook introduces co-viewing ability to watch together on Messenger
If you are a frequent reader of the newsletter Relatively Correct, then do share this with your friends otherwise I will start showing you ads on this newsletter!!!!!
Take care you all, the lockdown might be lifted but the danger is still out there.
You're missing the larger point.The movie touches on some important points related to the next generation. The suicide rates and the fact that these algorithms and business models do not consider child psychology at all.Its clear that we've already created a monster out of our control. Something has to be done now to regulate it.There's no point being pro or against- basically any polarised views , you jus have to have digital regulations in place or we will be pretty self destructive as we've already showed these patterns.
Hello Pavan
I have been following you recently and came across your post on instagram. I watched the documentary and also thought that it was good but never took out time to understand the other side of it though we are already familiar. This article was the first of you that I read and trust me, I have loved every bit of it and enjoyed reading every bit of it. I have subscribed to your mails and would definitely keep reading so let it come :)
More power to you buddy