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The Social Dilemma is a 2020 American docudrama film directed by Jeff Orlowski and written by Orlowski, Davis Coombe, and Vickie Curtis. It explores the rise of social media and the damage it has caused to society, focusing on its exploitation and manipulation of its users for financial gain through surveillance capitalism and data mining. It goes into depth on how social media's design is meant to nurture an addiction, manipulate its use in politics, and spread conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and aiding groups such as flat-earthers. The film also examines the serious issue of social media's effect on mental health (including the mental health of adolescents and rising teen suicide rates).

The film features interviews with many former employees, executives, and other professionals from top tech companies and social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Apple. These interviewees provide their first-hand experiences of working in and around the tech industry. They state that social media platforms and big tech companies have been instrumental in providing positive change for society; they also note that such platforms have also caused problematic social, political, and cultural consequences. These interviews are presented alongside scripted dramatizations of a teenager’s social media addiction and a primer on how a social media algorithm powered by artificial intelligence may work.

The Social Dilemma premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2020 and was released on Netflix on September 9, 2020.

Aza Raskin- Founder of Massive Health

Jeff Seibert- Co-founder of Digits

Jeff Seibert

Former executive at Twitter Serial Tech Entrepreneur Co-founder of Digits

Aza Raskin

Employed by Firefox & Mozilla Labs Co-Founder of Center for Humane Technology Founder of Massive Health The inventor of the infinite scroll

For Soshana Zubuff, I cited what was listed for her

Shoshana Zuboff

Professor Emeritus at Harvard School of Business Author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019)

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on 485 reviews, with an average rating of 7.62/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Clear-eyed and comprehensive, The Social Dilemma presents a sobering analysis of our data-mined present". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on nine critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The film received numerous positive reviews. ABC News's Mark Kennedy called the film "an eye-opening look into the way social media is designed to create addiction and manipulate our behavior, told by some of the very people who supervised the systems at places like Facebook, Google, and Twitter" and said it will "[make you] immediately want to toss your smartphone into the garbage can ... and then toss the garbage can through the window of a Facebook executive". Variety's Dennis Harvey said the film does a good job of explaining how "what's at risk clearly isn't just profit, or even poorly socialized children, but the empathetic trust that binds societies, as well as the solidity of democratic institutions [which] we're learning can be all-too-effectively undermined by a steady diet of perspective-warping memes". According to IndieWire's David Ehrlich, the film is the "single most lucid, succinct, and profoundly terrifying analysis of social media ever created". A Financial Times review said the film "carefully details the skyrocketing levels of depression among children and teenagers; the flat-earthers and white supremacists; the genocide in Myanmar; the Covid misinformation; [and] the imperiling of objective truth and social disintegration". The New York Times said that the film features "conscientious defectors from companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram [who] explain that the perniciousness of social networking platforms is a feature, not a bug". Venture Beat declared that the film is "a call to arms that strives to provoke a real response from lawmakers, companies, and the public at large before it’s too late." In a review article by Vanity Fair, they state "The Social Dilemma may finally convince you that we’re being watched, manipulated, and misled by unscrupulous platforms and attention-harvesting algorithms."

The film was also criticized for being simplistic and failing to include many longstanding and diverse critics of social media. Adi Robertson of The Verge noted the film offered a "familiar and simplistic assessment of how the internet has changed our lives." Author and digital media researcher Wendy Hui Kyong Chun argued that the film gives an inaccurate portrayal of how social media algorithms work and exaggerates how much control they have over their users. Facebook released a statement on its about page that the film “gives a distorted view of how social media platforms work to create a convenient scapegoat for what are difficult and complex societal problems". Pranav Malhotra of Slate criticizes the film for failing to acknowledge activists and commentators who have long-criticized social media: "It could have also given space to critical internet and media scholars like Safiya Noble, Sarah T. Roberts, and Siva Vaidhyanathan, just to name a few, who continue to write about how broader structural inequalities are reflected in and often amplified by the practices of big technology companies."  Mozilla employees Ashley Boyd and Audrey Hingle note the film's lack of "insights from women and people of color who have been important voices on these topics."

Production

The Social Dilemma was Directed by Jeff Orlowski and Produced by Larissa Rhodes through production company, Exposure Labs.

Background of Director

36 year old Filmmaker and environmentalist from Colorado, Jeff Orlowski, has been well known in the industry for his notable commitment to his work and his care for the planet.

Orlowski is the director, producer, and cinematographer of Chasing Coral (2017 Sundance Film Festival winner of the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary) and Chasing Ice (2012 Festival winner of the Excellence in Cinematography Award Documentary). Each of these films won an Emmy Award and were shortlisted for an Academy Award.  These films have also won numerous other awards such as 2018 Peabody for Chasing Coral, 2018 Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award for Photography And Visualization for Chasing Coral, 2017 UN Champion of the Earth for Inspiration and Action, 2016 Sundance Discovery Impact Fellow - Video, 2018 Philadelphia Environmental Film Festival for Environmental Advocacy Award, and 2017 Boulder Dairy Arts Center as an Honoree. Orlowski is also the founder of an award-winning production company called Exposure Labs. Jeff's most recent film, The Social Dilemma, is streaming on Netflix and has made the top 10 for the month of September in 2020.

Production Company

The Social Dilemma was produced through the production company, Exposure Labs.

Exposure Labs was founded by Jeff Orlowoski in 2009.

Words from Exposure Labs about The Social Dilemma

"Our dream is to build back up the film industry right here in our state, and the only way to do that is to make the work ourselves. Filmmakers like Orlowski and Rhodes calling Colorado home and keeping their work local is a huge boost to our industry. A film like this making such a major dent in history and also rising to the number-one film on Netflix for the month is a huge accomplishment for a local industry that so many gave up on."

"We’ve been blown away by the film’s reception so far, and we're grateful to have distribution by Netflix to be able to share the film in 190 countries and various languages."

In the film, Tristan Harris states “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.”

64% of the people in extremist groups on facebook, joined these groups because their algorithms lead them there. Algorithms push content that ignites outrage, hate, and amplifies biases within the data that is shown to them.