In 2017, director Jeff Orlowski noticed his friends working in tech were starting to talk about the bigger societal issues their industry was creating. They were talking about the negative effects of social media and search engines that have caused harm in the real world, from violent protests and misinformation to privacy invasions and mental health effects.
“It really turned into an investigation into what our technology is doing to society,” Orlowski said during TheWrap’s Emmy Screening Series presentation of his Netflix-presented film, “The Social Dilemma.” “What is Big Social doing to society? That was really the underlying question that led to the making of the film.
Released on Netflix in 2020, the documentary delves into conversations with former employees of all the major tech companies behind those apps and devices. In addition to topics from companies such as Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the film also features experts in politics, health and data science who offered their perspective on the contribution of technology to some of the problems current issues we face in terms of election hacking, loneliness and addiction.
But it’s not just the offline issues the company is grappling with – the growing problem was also what was happening behind the scenes, inside these tech giants, where entire teams of engineers and of designers work to keep users glued to their platforms, engaging as much as possible and using their activity and psychology against them.
The creators behind many of the app’s features that we know and use, including the Facebook “Like” button and the algorithms that drive many social media and search platforms, speak in the film and wonder whether their products and ideas have actually had a positive effect. impact in the world.
At the same time, these leaders began to drive change within the technology industry that involved creating better practices and greater awareness of these tools and applications. They pointed to the urgent need to rethink some of the features and business models of these big tech companies, and many began to question the ethics and responsibilities of how these platforms actually operate and how they are designed.
For the first year or so, Orlowski and his team began following his friend Tristan Harris, president and co-founder of the Center for Human Technology. Harris was a former Google design architect who worked on design ethics at the search giant. Harris has become a speaking expert on how tech companies compete for our attention and lead to addiction and polarization.
As they began to interview subjects, the list of people continued to grow. Because it was such a big topic with so much material to cover, early on the team also discussed turning the project into a series. They could have easily filled six to eight hours of content, Orlowski said.
“We were introduced to different topics through every interview we did,” said Larissa Rhodes, the film’s producer. “In some cases, it was difficult to get people to want to talk on camera about their work or…even the reality of understanding the true extent of this problem. On the other hand, there were tons of people who were very keen to talk about the problems they saw in the space and really wanted to be part of the solution and how they saw their own involvement in it.
Since many of these tech companies were top-tier companies, production remained fairly quiet, Orlowski said. They didn’t want to risk anything being leaked while they were doing it. After the film’s release, however, Facebook was the only company mentioned in the documentary that posted a public reply. Following the January 6 riots at the United States Capitol a few months after the publication, Facebook also began trying to change its actions internally after careful scrutiny.
Some of the creators of this project have also participated in previous projects, including “Chasing Ice” and “Chasing Coral”, which also investigated documentary pieces exploring the evolution of glaciers and coral reefs around the world. These projects sought to expose the invisible problems of the climate.
“It was interesting coming from a film we did before, where we found an interesting way to show people an issue in a way they had never seen before, witnessing the change that happens in coral reefs,” said Davis Coombe, editor and writer. .
Writer Vickie Curtis said “Chasing Coral” and “The Social Dilemma” are more related than people realize when it comes to plot. Although the former is about a climate issue, she said, both are actually about an existential crisis in the modern world.
“Crisis-level existential issues are really hard to capture on screen,” she said. “It’s hard to grasp the scope and magnitude because you can’t point your camera at all of humanity and say, ‘Look what’s at stake.’
The documentary is interwoven with a fictional storyline that takes people into some of the experiences behind the screen, the reality that exists on the other side of their devices. Orlowski’s initial idea was to show people how technology and algorithms make choices about how to bring users back to platforms and how to engage them. Algorithms are all motivated by showing ads to people at the right time, tricking them into inviting other people to the platform and getting more of their attention.
“That’s how we imagined the story of the character of Ben and his family, each grappling with a different part of the Big Social beast, whether it’s the opportunity for more bullying or extremism. politics,” Curtis said. “You just have to disconnect from your real life to enter your screen life.”
It’s a system where 3 billion people are “trapped in the system”, she added. And part of the larger problem that the film tries to illustrate is that these companies have immense control over information and how people interact with all that information.
Throughout the project, some team members found themselves logging out of their social media accounts. Some of them never really used social media before, but working on this movie definitely changed their perspective on how they use technology.
And after about a year since the film’s release, the team behind “The Social Dilemma” has engaged in dialogue with more than 85 policy makers around the world who want to tackle the issues depicted in their film.
“We’re seeing a huge shift in tone and tenor in what regulators and policymakers think can and should be done on this front,” Orlowski said. “There is a model that people can pay for that can really be designed for the general public. Both from the murmurs within businesses and from policy makers, we have heard a huge tide shift around what the future will look like.
Read the original story ‘The Social Dilemma’ director on the ‘underlying issue’ that drove the film (video) At TheWrap