Author: Jeff Orlowski
Publisher: Netflix
Publication Year: 2020
Summary: The following documentary provides an accessible and easily empathizable narrative for many of the consequences of social media. These “dilemmas” can be thought of as a mental health dilemma, a democracy dilemma, and a discrimination dilemma. The mental health dilemma concerns the repercussions of heavy social media use on primary children and young adults. Platforms that are more concerned about engagement rarely provide checks to see if increased usage or types of recommended content is detrimental to the user. The democracy dilemma brings into question the ability to choose and make decisions freely when many of the algorithms used to market also change the behavior of the users over time. When these capabilities are deliberately exploited these technologies become malicious. The discrimination dilemma highlights the ability of algorithms to promote content that amplifies the bigotry, racism, and hate that may exist in these spaces which consequently racializes a large swath of people.