Reddit charging for API usage. X/Twitter allowing hate speech and false information to remain on the platform. Ongoing TikTok ban debates. Meta facing a lawsuit from attorney generals in 42 U.S. states on the issue of adolescent safety. Shoot, Facebook’s former Director of Engineering, Arturo Béjar, recently spoke about Meta’s failure to combat sexual harassment on their platforms after his own daughter faced it on Instagram. Note that Meta is the overarching company that owns both Facebook and Instagram.
With all those events happening, a social dilemma is happening as we speak. There’s no shortage of cool content on social media, but there are also questions of ethics. How could social media conglomerates do better about enforcing anti-misinformation policies? How could social media conglomerates do better about fighting hate and harassment? Should people be active users on these social networking sites anyway? They’re questions that provoke many opinions, including from people who helped develop the platforms in the beginning.
The Social Dilemma is a very important documentary, with professionals in tech and academia spotlighted throughout. This article is not a formal review of The Social Dilemma. Rather, it’s a highlight reel of the 10 best quotes from the documentary. It was hard to pick and choose which ones to highlight and in which order to highlight them. Though I must admit, the list turned out pretty cohesive.
Before I advance through the list, here’s a synopsis of The Social Dilemma.
Synopsis: Brought to you by Netflix, The Social Dilemma is a documentary that explains how social media has become a place for connection, as well as alienation. A few former executives of the top social media companies speak on the alienation aspect of social media. Three of them being Tristan Harris, Google’s former Design Ethicist; Tim Kendall, a former Facebook executive and Pinterest’s ex-president; and Jeff Seibert, a former X/Twitter executive. There are also several academics who add to the subject matter, such as Dr. Shoshana Zuboff, Professor Emeritus of Harvard Business School; Dr. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at NYU Stern School of Business; and Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford Medicine.
With discussions on how social media has caused alienation, there are also discussions on how the developers intended to make social media platforms addictive from the beginning. Even subtle elements like colors and notifications were taken into consideration by them to maximize the platforms’ staying power. And lo and behold, they successfully constructed the platforms that almost 5 billion people (4.95 billion as of October 2023) use today across dozens of languages. Emails and search engines have become essential to work, so it’s very hard to give those things up entirely. Though transparency about how the applications work? A necessity, I fear.
Now, here are the 10 best quotes from The Social Dilemma. Bring on the WatchMojo style list!
- “It’s not about the technology being the existential threat. It’s the technology’s ability to bring out the worst in society, and the worst in society being the existential threat.” -Tristan Harris
It’s true. Technology in itself isn’t inherently bad. It’s been incredibly useful in quickly connecting with people and quickly finding information about almost anything. That said, there’s this ongoing enshittification of social media platforms that allows the worst of humanity to stick around unchecked. This documentary brings up a few examples of such in the documentary, including the Pizzagate conspiracy, COVID mis/disinformation, and Facebook’s failure to condemn anti-Rohingya violence (which converted offline into the Rohingya genocide).
The Social Dilemma was released in 2020, and Harris’ words ring truer than ever before three years later. Social media has come under more and more scrutiny as studies and news articles highlight the pervasiveness of hate on those sites. Hate has always existed in society, but social media grants that hate an easily-accessible megaphone. Whether or not that megaphone can effectively be moderated remains under debate. Either way, it’s clear that the megaphone as it is now has become out-of-control.
- “Because we don’t pay for the products that we use, advertisers pay for the products that we use, advertisers are the customers. We’re the thing being sold.” -Aza Raskin, ex-employee of Firefox & Mozilla Labs
This quote is in the same vein of another popular quote that Harris mentions right after Raskin’s quote—that “if you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.” This is a debatable one, because you can be paying for a product and still be the ultimate product. Why else is Meta proposing to charge users for ad-free access to Facebook and Instagram?
That being said, the sentiment about advertisers being the real customers is true. Social media platforms primarily run on advertiser money. When advertisers start to leave a platform, ad revenue sinks, which leads to less profitability and stability for the platform in question. X/Twitter is a living example of this. The New York Times reported that from the April 1-early May 2022 period to the April 1-early May 2023 period, they lost 59% in ad revenue. X/Twitter is desperate to regain the trust of advertisers. Although given that it carelessly allows online violence to persist, good luck to Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino on that challenge.
- “If everyone’s entitled to their own facts, there’s really no need for compromise, no need for people to come together. In fact, there’s really no need for people to interact.” -Roger McNamee, an early Facebook Venture Capitalist
Personally, one of my least favorite parts of the Internet is the pervasive spread of mis/disinformation. It doesn’t just persist in politics. It also exists in pop culture (especially in stan bubbles), sports, science—the list goes on. The truth is: anything can become “the truth” if you manipulate it and bombard it enough to people. Political entities in different countries do it as a power tactic. Though here’s another question: who gets to decide what is “the truth?” The answer gets blurry given that some elites will lie to advance their agendas, including oppressive ones.
Nevertheless, people need to do better at improving their media literacy levels and holding themselves accountable for spreading mis/disinformation. While we’re all prone to occasionally spreading mis/disinformation, the refusal to take accountability for it contributes to the world’s injustices. It’s okay to acknowledge when you were wrong and grow from it. That’s a strength in this day and age. Social media’s call-out culture has left people scared of making any mistakes, but the people who do the “calling out” often do so WITHOUT HOLDING THEMSELVES ACCOUNTABLE. That’s only caused chaos. It’s important for everyone to hold themselves and each other accountable for what they say and do, and McNamee’s quote is a call for that.
- “Essentially, you vote with your clicks. If you click on clickbait, you’re creating a financial incentive that perpetuates this existing system.” -Justin Rosenstein, former engineer at Facebook and Google
This is something that more people have got to realize. Views and clicks are engagement measures that determine the staying power of content. There’s much talk about not giving certain people platforms, but some people revel off of any kind of attention. In those cases, it’s better to give them the silent treatment and not play into their hands. No commentary. No sharing. Just the silent treatment will make them fade into obscurity.
Make no mistake. People can call out the harmfulness of people’s actions. However, the people who want any sort of attention? They’ll use the attention to obtain an audience that proactively supports their attention-seeking antics. If people stopped paying any sort of attention to their attention-seeking antics, that means no platform. And not everyone is worthy of a platform, right? Right.
Also, ever heard of the Streisand effect? It occurs when the attempt to deplatform something ends up giving that thing a larger platform instead. Oftentimes, the “thing” in question had very little attention beforehand. And even if it had some form of attention, newfound attention gives it more staying power, not less. People need to realize that it’s okay to not respond to everything they see online. Silently scrolling past something is a valid response and an emotionally intelligent one at that.
- “It’s a disinformation-for-profit business model. You make money the more you allow unregulated messages to reach anyone for the best price.” -Tristan Harris
Harris’ words might sound a little strange, but he’s not the only one to have observed it. Doing further research on the matter shows that his description of social media as a “disinformation-for-profit business model” is actually accurate. In addition to ad money, social networking sites profit off of user engagement. One of the ways this happens is through their complacency in the spread of mis/disinformation. There are also webs of private firms and scammers who profit off of amplifying conspiracy theories and disinformation about current events. Those webs are inconspicuous to the average netizen, but they influence public discourse in high magnitudes.
It’s also worth mentioning that algorithms often amplify defamatory content to the detriment of society. BUT as long as social media platforms get their revenue and online traffic, decrying defamation is at the bottom of their to-do list. A disinformation-for-profit model indeed.
- “We are more profitable to a corporation if we’re spending time staring at a screen, staring at an ad, than if we’re spending that time living our life in a rich way.” -Justin Rosenstein
Facts, Rosenstein. Facts. An Al Jazeera article titled “How many years does a typical user spend on social media?” cites data from DataReportal about the average daily usage of social media per user. The average time was 2 hours and 24 minutes, which translates to 36 days a year, which translates to 5.5 years in the span of 56 years (from ages 16-72). Though considering that some people (especially teens) spend way more time than that on social media, the years lost to social media can go up to 10-20 years. Imagine spending that time just scrolling social media without moving towards professional goals or personal wellness. No wonder why this world’s going through a mental health crisis.
Personally, I couldn’t imagine being happily married, happily employed, happily moving through my life’s bucket list, and making the decision to provoke negatively through actions like constantly hate-watching celebs. Although if you’re miserable despite your rich quality of life, don’t you fear—those like Zuck, Musk, and ByteDance are here to profit off your misery!
- “There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.” -Dr. Edward Tufte, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science of Yale University
Dr. Tufte does not make an appearance in this documentary, but it shows this quote of his for about 10 seconds. It’s honestly one that could serve as willpower in curbing back social media usage. And it’s not a false analogy either. There’s research mentioning the symptom similarities between social media addiction and drug addiction. There’s an organization called Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous, which has a 12-step program inspired by that of Alcoholics Anonymous. There are even formal treatment options for curbing social media addiction, because it’s becoming a notable problem. Alarming, right? It shows that Dr. Tufte’s words are so true, it’s scary.
- “But were we evolved to be aware of what 10,000 people think of us? We were not evolved to have social approval being dosed to us every five minutes.” -Tristan Harris
This quote reminds me of the Dunbar number. The Dunbar number is the predicted number of substantial relationships that you can hold at any given time. The magic number: 150. That number is debatable, but I personally couldn’t imagine keeping up with 150 people. It’s hard to keep up with 10 people as is. So to me, the thought of my worldviews revolving around 10,000 social media users is stressful.
There’s this concept of being chronically online, AKA terminally/extremely online. It’s the consequence of constantly being on the Internet and basing your worldviews based on those of thousands—even millions—of strangers. It would really be more accurate to say “terminally on social media,” but the premise is the same. Selective outrage and performative outrage are common phenomena amongst those who are terminally on social media. They happen offline obviously, but seeing it in action through varying quantities of likes, comments, and shares on different posts gets stressful. Especially when factoring in herd mentality and clout-chasing culture.
- “We’re training and conditioning a whole new generation of people that when we are uncomfortable or lonely or uncertain or afraid, we have a digital pacifier for ourselves that is kind of atrophying our own ability to deal with that.” -Tristan Harris
The metaphorization of social media as a “digital pacifier” is one of the best utilizations of figurative language ever. When seeking an escape from a current situation, many people will resort to scrolling TikTok’s “For You” page or Reddit’s front page as their safe haven. While social media can be used to pursue professional goals and harmless entertainment, it’s often not used for those purposes. Just look at the connections between mental health and social media usage. Higher amounts of social media usage are correlated with more mental health issues.
The pressure to stay tuned to what other people do is a distractor from personal dreams. The digital pacifier that is social media makes it more convenient to live vicariously through others than live through one’s own future-building process. Sounds gratifying in the beginning, but that eventually leads to the boulevard of broken dreams. And really, do you want to think about how social media ate away your time in 2053? Or even at the end of 2024? Note the feelings you get while reading those questions.
Before mentioning the absolute most memorable quote from The Social Dilemma, here are five additional quotes worthy of honorable mentions.
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“Two billion people will have thoughts that they didn’t intend to have because a designer at Google said, ‘This is how notifications work on that screen that you wake up to in the morning.’” -Tristan Harris
“It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product. That’s the only thing there is for them to make money from—changing what you do, how you think, who you are.” -Jaron Lanier, AKA the “founding father of virtual reality”
“Social media isn’t a tool that’s just waiting to be used. It has its own goals, and it has its own means of pursuing them by using your psychology against you.” -Tristan Harris
“I like to say that algorithms are opinions embedded in code and that algorithms are not objective.” – Dr. Cathy O’Neil, data scientist
“The media has this exact same problem, where their business model, by and large, is that they are selling our attention to advertisers. And the Internet is just a new, even more efficient way to do that.” -Justin Rosenstein
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- “What it really is is fake, brittle popularity that’s short-term and that leaves you even more, and admit it, vacant and empty [than] before you did it. Think about that compounded by two billion people, and then think about how people react then to the perceptions of others.” -Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook’s former Vice President of Growth
Actually, compound that by 3 billion people (the number of Facebook users as of October 2023) and this quote on hearts, likes, and “thumbs up” being fake forms of validation hits even harder. It may sound strange to hear this from someone like Palihapitiya, but it’s true. Think about the people who go viral and then feel deprived afterwards due to failing to maintain a dedicated audience. Think about the people who hold certain opinions because they’re trendy, not because they know about the subjects at hand. Think about the people who report online harassment, only for the platforms to deem the violent comments as “not violating community guidelines.” Those kinds of scenarios show how social media has become a “free-for-all” environment, and not in a good way.
Social media consists of a bunch of echo chambers that influence people’s worldviews. When people’s worldviews are restricted to those chambers, it can leave them unable to consider any other perspective. Even if those different perspectives are based on fact. At that point, it’s often about feeding their confirmation biases rather than engaging in serious dialogues. What’s worse is how people get outraged over trivial matters and argue with people they’ll never see in-person. OH, the noise. Oh, the noise. Noise. Noise! NOISE! That’s one thing that’ll provoke low self-esteem in the long-run. All the noise. Noise. Noise! NOISE!
Final Thoughts: All in all, The Social Dilemma is a must-watch for everyone with a social media account. There’s a lot of philosophical gold, and the overall execution is great! The only issue is that I thought the acting scene at around the 5-minute mark was pretty forced. The dialogue there didn’t feel natural, and the acting in that scene didn’t feel spontaneous. Great acting means effortlessly making the scene feel spontaneous. The scene’s lack of effortless spontaneity briefly ruined the flow of the documentary.
Though after that, the acting scenes picked up in quality! They started to feel natural and served well in advancing the documentary’s main idea. My favorite acting scene was when the guy immerses himself into his phone in the middle of the night to Nina Simone’s “I Put a Spell on You”. That song was PERFECT for that scene and was at its most spellbinding with the lyric, “‘CAUSE YOU’RE MINE!”
There’s a lot to learn from this documentary. From the slot machine analogy to the product placement of the kSafe Time Lock, The Social Dilemma couldn’t have gotten much better than it was. To some people it may seem like a one-sided documentary with extreme cynicism. Of course no one’s obligated to delete their social media accounts. However, it brings some good reflections from a few former employees of major social media companies. Also, it’s good that there’s greater transparency about how social media really works. I give the documentary a 9.75/10 rating.
If you’ve watched The Social Dilemma, what was your favorite quote or part of the documentary? Let’s socialize in the comments, no social dilemma to face. If you haven’t watched it, go watch it on Netflix or watch it for free on Vimeo.
