Documentary Review: The Social Dilemma

The truth of it all is alarming, how algorithms are designed to cater to what you think you

desire and yet be the exact same thing that might lead you to a path of destruction. In the same

way that the human race has created this type of technology for our own benefit, we have also

subconsciously created and fallen prey to it that will guide us to our potential demise.

In this documentary, tech experts from all sorts of social media platforms and networking

sites have come together to share to us the very reasons why they’ve come to quit their line of

work. Out of all of their experiences, there is one factor that ties it all together, moral values. The

lot of us might believe that the internet is helpful to us more than it is destructive, which is true

in some circumstances as mentioned like reuniting lost family members and many more.

However, what we fail to see and touch upon is the fact that the internet is harming is in a way

that is not as physical as what we would originally think (like harmful radiation to the human

body and failing vision). No, the internet and all its algorithms corrupts us by using us all as lab

rats for its profit, though not originally designed in a way that would most likely create civil wars

and political clashes, it surely did evolve that way, and in a largely unthinkable process.

As explained in layman’s terms, the algorithm is created to watch our every move and

how long we view something online, may it be a photo, a video, or whatever else. With this
heavy amount of data, great predictions are created by the net to suggest more content that we

are most likely to interact with. In light of this, the internet finds a way to psychologically trick

us into spending more and more of our own time scrolling and staying glued to our phones, in

the name of profit. Many counts of instances like Pizzagate and electoral overthrows can be

traced down to simpler algorithms leading people to believe in fake news that they wouldn’t

even have thought about in the first place.

For me, what shown is true to some extent as I am not experienced in the technological

field nor someone who has witnessed the immensity of its consequences first hand to give a more

specific take on the situation. But I will say that what said in this documentary is applicable to

one of the more recent nationwide events that happened in the Philippines, the national elections.

Maria Angelita Ressa, the chief executive officer of Rappler (a digital company in the

Philippines), makes a brief appearance and claims that the democracy of our country has

crumbled quickly, six months to be exact. This of course, for me is true because I have been a

part of the elections myself and I have seen, to some extent, how social media has managed to

convince thirty-one million people in my country to vote for the son of a dictator. Surely enough,

these people have values of their own, so how come they would vote for a man that fakes a

college degree. The simple answer to this situation is fake news and peddlers who make sure it is

widespread. A cacophony of fake articles and other forms of disinformation have been created

by trolls in this time period, combined with the meticulous algorithm of the most famous social

networking sites in the Philippines such as YouTube, TikTok, and especially Facebook, these

false counts have been spread faster than the truth. People were made to believe such small

things that have led to them believing another, and another, and another, which resulted in a
continuous chain reaction of information fabrication and psychological manipulation. To be fair,

even though I cannot quite put my finger on it, taking a few clicks to justify if one thing is the

truth or not (and low and behold that there is more than just one thing on a daily basis of surfing

through the internet) is very taxing to the normal person, that of which I can confirm for myself,

though I can confidently say that I do not fall to fake news so easily for I follow news sites first

before anything. On the other hand, some people fall prey so easily with expertly edited articles

and such, which resulted in them believing more and more of said false information. This, I am

sure, we can solve with better fact-checkers in all social media platforms. Yes, we do have fact-

checkers as of the moment, but rarely do I see them in action. We need more of them, and fast,

because as time goes by, fake news spreads faster and faster, and with worse consequences

following the other.

As a final point, we may think that artificial intelligence would destroy us, and we may

think we have yet to reach that point, but we have, in a subtler way than what we originally

thought. To battle this internet epidemic, the algorithm itself must be tweaked to consist of better

systems that fast-track false information as quickly as possible, and more importantly though not

as feasible, have the algorithm stop from using us as fodder for its income.