Tuesday, October 06, 2020

Facebook and The Social Dilemma

The Social Dilemma is a documentary discussing the dark side of social media. Since starting to stream on Netflix on September 9 2020, it has quickly risen in popularity and became one of Netflix’s top 10 most popular shows. The film reveals strategies and tactics that social media firms use to keep users on their sites longer, the psychological impact of social media, as well as how social media platforms influence society and politics.

On October 2, 2020, Facebook released a post rebutting the claims in the documentary, claiming that it “gives a distorted view of how social media platforms work to create a convenient scapegoat for what are difficult and complex societal problems”. Specifically, it gave rebuttals on 7 issues that Facebook has been heavily criticized for both in and outside of the documentary. 

On the point of contributing to social media addiction, Facebook argues that it builds its products to create value and its product teams are not incentivized to build features that increase time spent on its products.

On the rampant misinformation that social media can spread, Facebook claims that they fight fake news and harmful content by engaging more than 70 fact-checking partners who review content in different languages. 

On the issue of influencing elections, Facebook admits mistakes from 2016 and claims to have built a strong defense to stop people from using Facebook to interfere with elections.

Facebook recognizes that its system is not perfect, but is actively working to minimize some of the negative effects of social media.


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