The Social Dilemma: the tech industry's toll on democracy

An examination of the impact the tech industry has on human freedom in the documentary “The Social Dilemma” and the implications this could have for democracy.

Source: Today Testing

The recent release of Netflix’s provoking documentary, ‘The Social Dilemma’, has caused social media users to question their favourite pastime’s integrity, and, more importantly, their own freedom. The movie, directed by Jeff Orlowski, highlights the power of the tech industry today and its unhealthy impact on our daily lives. Through interviewing the industry’s most renowned creators and engineers, Orlowski manages to show the incredibly nefarious effects of social networks, as well as the critical questions that arise when trying to balance ethics and profit. The movie truly pushes viewers to ask a jarring question: does the tech industry undermine democracy?

During the 21st century, “Big Tech” industries have unsurprisingly risen to become some of the largest grossing companies in the world. Since the beginning of the digital age (circa 1970s), these industries have been run on the basis of “self-regulation”, a process whereby no external bodies, such as governmental monitors, intervene in order to corroborate their adherence to legal or ethical standards. Although this system was presumed to work flawlessly at first, over the last couple of years, more and more concerns have arisen about this type of regulation for multiple reasons. Today, a number of lawmakers are pushing for Tech Giants such as Facebook or Google to be broken up, and are also encouraging the government to play a part in regulating these industries. 

The most common critique of “self-regulation” is the fact that large tech industries have lacked transparency, and, for the most part, have consistently prioritised profit over ethics. What does this mean? To put it simply, this form of regulation has only caused innovation costs to go up, and does nothing to promote healthy competition, but, most importantly, it does close to nothing to protect billions of users worldwide, who today have grown completely reliant on their services. 

In 2019, the British government announced that the era of “self-regulation” for British tech companies was over. In a proposed “duty of care”, the government imposed new steps for these industries to limit harmful services and take action against dangerous content such as terrorist motive, cyber-bullying, child pornography, and fake news. Britain leads a number of other countries and individuals tired of tech companies avoiding their responsibility for creating platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, that have for a long time incited abuse and criminal action. 

Shoshana Zuboff, a social psychologist and professor interviewed in “The Social Dilemma”, explains clearly why tech industries should not be allowed to self-regulate. Zuboff underlines the fact that human trafficking markets and human organ markets have been outlawed because of their incredibly destructive consequences, yet although tech industries have created platforms that also have major detrimental effects on society, they have never been subject to government regulations. 

Moreover, another underlying issue that is highlighted by Orlowski in his documentary is the idea that every social media user is exposed to their own version of reality. Similar to a twisted real-life “Truman Show” situation, the algorithms used by tech giants have advanced exponentially in the last decades, and today have led to incredible mass disinformation and the corruption of the word “truth”. Users are only exposed to what they want to see, and not what someone else is also seeing. The consequences of this being that every user is exposed to extremely specific information like certain posts or tweets, and in a certain order, which have a huge impact on this person’s sense of reality and truth. If a user decides to watch a YouTube video about a topic such as gun control or gun rights in the United States, the YouTube algorithm will suggest another video about the same or a similar topic, and so on. This is often referred to as “the YouTube rabbit hole”, through which an individual gets sucked into watching dozens of videos regarding similar topics, and, in a way, is “brainwashed” by this information. By the same token, Instagram users have access to a “For You” page that displays posts related to the accounts they follow or have recently visited. 

The problem with this type of algorithm, whereby your suggested content is perfectly tailored to you, is that social media users are then misinformed or create ideas and opinions that are based on only one point of view, and most importantly, are unable to access unbiased, fact-checked information. Users basically only see what they want to see, or what they think they want to see. For example, a conservative Republican in the United States will only be exposed to certain ads, Instagram, or Facebook posts that are aligned with their own ideas. This individual is more likely to see pro-Trump advertisement, be suggested right-wing websites or petitions, and will have more exposure to conservative news outlets. 

Although this doesn’t seem like it would have an impact on their freedom, social media platforms and search engines such as Google play a huge part in the spread of false or extremely biased information, commonly referred to as “Fake News”. This information is able to propagate itself due to the fact that platforms like Facebook or YouTube are unable to fact check every single publication made on their website. If democracy is defined by the belief in freedom and equality between people (Cambridge Dictionary), it is clear that with elements like the “rabbit hole” and Fake News, social media platforms have a clear detrimental effect on democracy and freedom; not all individuals have access to the same information and their ideas are easily manipulated by false information. 

The irony present in Orlowski’s documentary is that most individuals are aware of the harmful consequences of social networking, but will not change their lifestyles consequently. The striking metaphor used in “The Social Dilemma” is that in our global economy, a dead whale is worth more than a living one, just like a dead tree is worth more than a live one. Therefore, we continue to kill these things and consequently kill our planet for the sake of profit, even though we know we are consciously causing irreversible damage. Likewise, millions of social media users will continue to use these technologies even though they know they have a disastrous effect on society and undermine democracy. On a bigger, more important scale, tech giants such as Google and Facebook will continue to sharpen their algorithms and spread mass misinformation if they are not subject to external regulations, as these industries are mostly motivated by profit. 

However impactful documentaries like “The Social Dilemma” may seem, how can we be sure that they will actually make a difference? The answer is that we cannot determine if they will change users’ habits or impact the ethics of the tech industry. Nonetheless, just through raising awareness, the Social Dilemma already makes huge strides in pointing the finger at tech companies who are ultimately responsible for their platforms. Obviously, there is still work to be done and more debates to be had regarding the limits of self-regulation, but today, more and more users are made aware of the issue. Many people will eventually ask, will Tech Giants ever truly be held accountable for their harmful technologies? Who will hold them accountable? Will users choose to ignore the damage or start making changes in their networking habits? Only the tip of this iceberg has been uncovered, and many more issues will continue to arise as the population grows more and more dependent on social networking, and tech companies continue to avoid responsibility for the harm caused by their services.