…and I don’t feel fine!
Just watched the new Netflix documentary ‘the social dilemma’ and it was terrifying. I think it’s this generation’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. And you can see what Al Gore’s groundbreaking documentary did for Climate Change! Well, nothing really in terms of fixing it but at least people have heard of it now – it’s got brand recognition.
So, it turns out social media isn’t just causing depression and anxiety in young girls (which it is, in massive numbers) it’s also eroding the very fabric of society and plunging us on track to civil war, all in the name of advertising revenue. The AI developed by google, Facebook, Instagram et al is working all the time on getting you addicted to your phone. Everything you click on or even pause scrolling to look at provides information which is used to subtly change your feed, to make you want to keep using. No one cares if this manipulation is good for you or society. The programs don’t care or even know if what it’s showing you is even true. If you find conspiracy theories interesting, you’re going to get sent down a rabbit hole that will result in antimask protests, pizzagate, and occasionally mass murder. Usually this radicalization is an unfortunate side effect of corporations trying to make money selling you stuff, but sometimes this is the effect that the social media clients (other corporations or even governments) are actually willing to pay for.
It’s horrifying, but apparently fixable. What it’s going to take is the political will and understanding that the market isn’t going to fix his one. Yes, I’m sorry Libertarians but it’s going to take government intervention to save us. After all, it’s only going to hit a handful of billionaires in the pocket to make the rest of us enormously safer.
thesocialdilemma.com