Arise Bharat

By: Kalyani Pola

As billions of people scrolled, liked and shared their way through daily life, a documentary quietly asked a disturbing question: What if the very platforms connecting us are also controlling us?

The Social Dilemma, a Netflix documentary released in 2020, captured the voices of former top executives from major social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube and WhatsApp, among others.

These insiders resigned from such companies, grappling with the ethical guilt surrounding the motives of these corporations and the way their platforms are built and run.

The facts what they highlighted are not new to most of us. At least few of the facts. But the screenplay of the documentary narrating these facts through direct experiences and dilemma what these employees faced makes it more authentic.

How Platforms Capture Attention

The executives unveiled how these social media platforms design and use their algorithms to gain the attention of their users in the form of increased screen time and engagement, making the users addicted to their content and platforms. And all this is freely offered to their users.

What do they get from this…?

They say… we need to understand that:

If you are not paying for the product then you are the product…

It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behaviour and perception that is the product.

They highlight that these social media platforms sell their user’s behavioural patterns and traits to their customers (Businesses, Governments etc).

This is what every Business/Government has always dreamt of. That it will have a guarantee that if they place an ad/content they will be successful.

And that’s the business of these social media platforms. They sell certainty to the business houses/Governments. For this they need data to predict.

They built models that predict our future action based on our Internet activity data. Who ever had the best model wins.

These platforms have three goals… Engagement goal, Growth goal and Advertisement goal. Each of these goals is powered by algorithms to figure out what to show you to keep those numbers going up.

We now have markets that trade in human futures at scale. That made these Internet based companies the richest.

A True Social Dilemma

The documentary is aptly titled, as the views of these executives present a social dilemma leading to deep conflict between the benefits of convenience, entertainment, connections and knowledge/news to the users versus societal harms it does like addiction to social media, mental health issues leading to depression and suicides, political polarisation etc.

It’s rightly established in the documentary that there are only two industries that call their customers Users. Illegal drugs and software.

That’s enough statement to understand that all these platforms are embedded with several DARK PATTERNS.

In simple terms, dark patterns are the user interface design patterns that manipulate user behaviour of such platforms which they otherwise would not have intended to.

One of the executives in the documentary opines that if we go down the current status quo for another 20 years then we probably destroy our civilisation by wilful ignorance.

It’s scary to know all these, right…

But Wait — There Is a Way Forward

In the documentary, the executives offer few tips to leverage the benefits of social media yet not falling prey to it. Something which they tried/are trying:

• Uninstall the apps that are wasting your time. All the social media apps, all the news apps.
• Turn off notifications or anything that distracts you through sounds/vibration.
• Never click on any recommended stuff on these platforms/apps. We should be able to choose what we want.
• Remember that most of the top techie developers in these companies don’t give phone to their children.
• All the devices out of bedroom before a fixed time.
• No social media till high school/age 16.
• Work out a time budget on how much time you want to use phone and stick to that.

Let us all pledge that we will use technology wisely. Do educate the people around you about these facts and recovery mechanism.