The Social Dilemma, 2020 notes

THE SOCIAL DILEMMA (NETFLIX SERIES) 

CAPITALISM 

• We are not paying for the thing that we use, advertisers pay, advertisers were the customers, we, users are being sold. 
• “if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product” 
• Our attention is the product being sold to the advertisers 
• The gradual change in users’ behaviour and perception is the product 

• Succesful businesss: 
• To have a guarantee to have a successful ads
• Sell certainty 
• Have to have great predictions 
• You need a lot of data 

• Surveillance Capitalism
• tracking of users 
• A marketplace that trades exclusively in human futures 
• Made Internet business the most successful industry in the history of humanity 

• watched, tracked, measured 
• Engagement time especially 
• They analyse your usage and make predictions  
• Build models that predict our actions, best model wins 
• All relying on technology 
• More reaction we made, more data they get, better their predictions 
• Even What kinds of emotions trigger you 

GOALS

• Engagement goal, keep u scrolling 
• Growth goal, invite more people to engage 
• Advertising goals, making as much money as possible from advertising 
• Algorithms, figure out what top how you

“We’ve created a world in which online connections has become primary especially for younger generations. And yet in that world, any time two people connect, the only way to finance is through a sneaky third person who’s paying to manipulate those two people. So we’ve created a global generation who are raised within a context where the very meaning of communication, the very meaning of culture, is manipulation. We’ve put deceit and sneakiness at the centre of everything we do. “

“ Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke

• fool adults with Phds with magic 
• They are the ones who first understood how people’s minds work 
• Make the illusion works 
• When he was at the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, he learnt 
• How could you use everything that we have learnt in psychology to persuade people and build that into technology 
• The professor’s goal is to turn students into a behaviour-change genius 

https://www.ft.com/content/f1d3a2c8-1a01-4d37-a939-6067ab2b8b63 

(8sept2020, by Fiona Sturges) 

• ethical concerns about the systems 
• The film reveals the extent to which social media and other platforms can isolate and manipulate users, reinforcing existing interests and viewpoints while stoking societal divisions. It shows how our time and attention is monetised, how there is more profit in disinformation than in truth, and the ways in which democracy is being eroded.