ADVERTISEMENT

The Social Dilemma on Netflix should be required viewing for all human beings

Talk about looking in the mirror. If you don’t feel ashamed of yourself, or at the very least a little dirty, after watching this documentary, you are a better person than I.


Someone else made a similar suggestion a few days ago. Anyone who's been paying attention knows what Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc. are up to - they're not social media companies or search engines - they're the biggest warehouses of private user data on the planet. I stopped using Facebook when I saw my never before politically minded relatives suddenly sharing obvious misinformation and promoting it as the truth. The 'rabbit holes' their algorithms create are by design. I don't think the intent is to cause divisiveness, but rather getting a user to spend as much time on their platforms as possible. The unintended (I think) result is what we have now - a total clusterf*ck.
 
Someone else made a similar suggestion a few days ago. Anyone who's been paying attention knows what Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc. are up to - they're not social media companies or search engines - they're the biggest warehouses of private user data on the planet. I stopped using Facebook when I saw my never before politically minded relatives suddenly sharing obvious misinformation and promoting it as the truth. The 'rabbit holes' their algorithms create are by design. I don't think the intent is to cause divisiveness, but rather getting a user to spend as much time on their platforms as possible. The unintended (I think) result is what we have now - a total clusterf*ck.
A college professor once explained free app store downloads, social media networks, etc. as this:

"If it is free, you are the product."

It always stuck with me.
 
A college professor once explained free app store downloads, social media networks, etc. as this:

"If it is free, you are the product."

It always stuck with me.

Another unintended consequence is how mainstream media has had to do the same to keep up; if Facebook is going to allow a group of a million people to dialogue about whether or not certain politicians are actually part of a secret, devil worshiping, cult of pedophiles then guess what? TV news need to be as big and hysterical. I think this is less true in print media, but still - 'news' anymore is about who can be first and most outrageous. I'll give it to Rush Limbaugh though - he was doing this stuff on his show decades earlier but without the internet as a bullhorn it was mostly limited to anyone who actually bothered to tune into his program.
 
Another unintended consequence is how mainstream media has had to do the same to keep up; if Facebook is going to allow a group of a million people to dialogue about whether or not certain politicians are actually part of a secret, devil worshiping, cult of pedophiles then guess what? TV news need to be as big and hysterical. I think this is less true in print media, but still - 'news' anymore is about who can be first and most outrageous. I'll give it to Rush Limbaugh though - he was doing this stuff on his show decades earlier but without the internet as a bullhorn it was mostly limited to anyone who actually bothered to tune into his program.
Even the concept of objective journalism died a long time ago.
 
Another unintended consequence is how mainstream media has had to do the same to keep up; if Facebook is going to allow a group of a million people to dialogue about whether or not certain politicians are actually part of a secret, devil worshiping, cult of pedophiles then guess what? TV news need to be as big and hysterical. I think this is less true in print media, but still - 'news' anymore is about who can be first and most outrageous. I'll give it to Rush Limbaugh though - he was doing this stuff on his show decades earlier but without the internet as a bullhorn it was mostly limited to anyone who actually bothered to tune into his program.

Agreed--I'm definitely on the right side of the aisle for certain things, but Rush has been a shit-stirrer for years. I haven't had a chance to watch the Netflix show mentioned by the OP yet, but it is in my queue.

IMO, the internet is society's biggest blessing and its biggest curse. It has brought education and information to the masses, however it also brought "education" and "information" to the masses. Every idiot now has a platform that can get millions of eyeballs. Some of the memes and "stories" re-tweeted, shared on Facebook, etc. are just pure BS yet those sharing it don't think twice before clicking the button.
 
Even the concept of objective journalism died a long time ago.

It exists, but you have to work harder to find it. Much easier to click a link to some noname twitter account who says something. Just look at all the clicks/links Sir Yacht got on this board alone - he has no legitimate reputation or career as a journalist and people were waiting with baited breath on his updates, That's not to say you have to be an established journalist to break news or anything, but the barriers of entry to 'legitimacy' are lower than ever. No fact checking, sources, etc. - just say whatever and pivot if wrong.
 
ON Facebook, now rash of fake Chinese websites that appear to be real with huge discount pricing that take your money and get nothing. I got ripped off for $100 on a 'great' deal i though on a weight set. Never got it but they took by $100 from paypal. This weekend saw a LLBean site and then looked a little further and it was bogus. But facebook keeps it up on their site for weeks. Facebook is evil.
 
ON Facebook, now rash of fake Chinese websites that appear to be real with huge discount pricing that take your money and get nothing. I got ripped off for $100 on a 'great' deal i though on a weight set. Never got it but they took by $100 from paypal. This weekend saw a LLBean site and then looked a little further and it was bogus. But facebook keeps it up on their site for weeks. Facebook is evil.
If you peruse the interwebs and buy from random websites so you can save $100, that's on you. Particularly in the case of LL Bean.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RickinDayton
It exists, but you have to work harder to find it. Much easier to click a link to some noname twitter account who says something. Just look at all the clicks/links Sir Yacht got on this board alone - he has no legitimate reputation or career as a journalist and people were waiting with baited breath on his updates, That's not to say you have to be an established journalist to break news or anything, but the barriers of entry to 'legitimacy' are lower than ever. No fact checking, sources, etc. - just say whatever and pivot if wrong.
Any recommendations ?
 
Any recommendations ?
I use Reuters a lot.

Reuters is good; I like NPR (I don't deny they are more left leaning, but they are the most 'fact based' news organization I've found) - they give equal/ample time to varying opinions but depending on the program (1A for example) there may be more identity politics than some people may like. The best articles/shows/whatever are those who present facts and let you decide for yourself. One NPR show I like a lot is Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal - it's a show about the stock market, business, the economy, etc. Lots of interviews with farmers when discussing impacts from trade, discussion of how monetary policy in Washington and elsewhere could impact you personally, etc. I think if you know going in what the biases are, you can get a lot more out of your media. I know The Federalist is conservative and has an agenda, but they still prop up their articles with facts - whether you agree with their conclusions is up to you.
 
Agreed--I'm definitely on the right side of the aisle for certain things, but Rush has been a shit-stirrer for years. I haven't had a chance to watch the Netflix show mentioned by the OP yet, but it is in my queue.

IMO, the internet is society's biggest blessing and its biggest curse. It has brought education and information to the masses, however it also brought "education" and "information" to the masses. Every idiot now has a platform that can get millions of eyeballs. Some of the memes and "stories" re-tweeted, shared on Facebook, etc. are just pure BS yet those sharing it don't think twice before clicking the button.

add to that the fact that clicks drive everything, and you have a perfect storm of "information" (read: MISinformation) being fed to the masses in the most hysterical possible form, to ensure clicks. self-licking ice cream cone...

ON Facebook, now rash of fake Chinese websites that appear to be real with huge discount pricing that take your money and get nothing. I got ripped off for $100 on a 'great' deal i though on a weight set. Never got it but they took by $100 from paypal. This weekend saw a LLBean site and then looked a little further and it was bogus. But facebook keeps it up on their site for weeks. Facebook is evil.

again, going to the click bait side of things, what are the incentives for FB, Twitter, IG.... etc to police this shit? When clicks drive everything, it incentivizes these fake accounts to be as outrageous as possible....



the overall saddest part of all of this is the fact that a lot, MAYBE the majority of Americans believe this nonsense and don't verify things. When I went to SERE school 5-6 years ago, I was the student that they decided to do a social media dive on. I thought I was doing a great job of locking down my accounts, but the information they could find on me in the open source realm was shocking. We're talking, they asked me things like "is your government aware that you hired a coyote to mule your illegal wife across the border??" and "you have a trailer that you call your "mobile command center", and you have numerous pictures of your firearms, are you fomenting dissent in your country and do you plan to do so in ours?"... DISTURBING. Privacy is one of the big reasons that I deleted all my social media accounts, but i've seen what happens on them nowadays, and it's really really sad that people are so uneducated that they trust everything they see on social media as "fact"....


ugh.... this pisses me off just to talk about. social media is going to be the downfall of society.
 
If you peruse the interwebs and buy from random websites so you can save $100, that's on you. Particularly in the case of LL Bean.

I am not blaming facebook, lesson learned for me. my point was that facebook had this same fake illegal website up for months. never took it down. that is on them. and there are huge amounts of fake websites advertising on facebook with them taking money for that advertising. it is on them to not allow illegal chinese websites that are ripping people off and stealing people's money and to get rid of them. which obviously they are not.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sandiegohawk
Talk about looking in the mirror. If you don’t feel ashamed of yourself, or at the very least a little dirty, after watching this documentary, you are a better person than I.

I've worked in Tech my entire life and love it. Tech is a tool, no different than the wheel, fire or a shovel. All of these can be used for good or for evil. Directionally, they've all advanced society in just about every way. An issue with Google/facebook/insta/tinder...is that we just haven't figured it out yet. Fake news? Of course, I can give you a hundred examples of CNN, Fox and MSNBC lying because they are too smart to simply be wrong. The lack of reporting the facts on COVID are astounding. So I've gotten to the point where I believe NOTHING until I read the direct quote with context.

We'll figure it out. We get so much more data today than we've ever had before. Trusted sources will emerge.

I read an article that stated we have way too much data to be able to process so the human brain tries to sort out all of that data into trends and categories. As such, people make a trend and then seek out information to support their preconceived trend-notion. We've got to train ourselves to open our minds and at least see what doesn't fit the trend. As an analogy, if you've had kids, you kind of see them at five years old and categorize them. This goes on for months and then one day they say something and you say "wow, they are growing up, I need to reset my expectations for them." That is kind of where we are.
 
I am not blaming facebook, lesson learned for me. my point was that facebook had this same fake illegal website up for months. never took it down. that is on them. and there are huge amounts of fake websites advertising on facebook with them taking money for that advertising. it is on them to not allow illegal chinese websites that are ripping people off and stealing people's money and to get rid of them. which obviously they are not.

While I don't disagree with your general premise about Facebook ads, unless you're totally ignorant to technology, it is extremely difficult to be "taken" by one of these fake things. Don't click on the crap.
 
Reuters is good; I like NPR (I don't deny they are more left leaning, but they are the most 'fact based' news organization I've found) - they give equal/ample time to varying opinions but depending on the program (1A for example) there may be more identity politics than some people may like. The best articles/shows/whatever are those who present facts and let you decide for yourself. One NPR show I like a lot is Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal - it's a show about the stock market, business, the economy, etc. Lots of interviews with farmers when discussing impacts from trade, discussion of how monetary policy in Washington and elsewhere could impact you personally, etc. I think if you know going in what the biases are, you can get a lot more out of your media. I know The Federalist is conservative and has an agenda, but they still prop up their articles with facts - whether you agree with their conclusions is up to you.

+1. Agree about the "left lean" at times but on the whole I trust them more than the others.
 
  • Like
Reactions: anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Even the concept of objective journalism died a long time ago.
It certainly did not. Folks on the right perceive it as such because Fox News has been telling them for 20 years that they and they alone are Fair & Balanced and all other news sources are biased. It’s core to their viewer retention strategy. Your statement just underscores their success in warping your perception to their benefit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nitt1300
What i find disturbing is the fact just about every discussion on this board turns into a political or racial side bar. The other issues are hack sport writers, what Pitt fans are saying, diverting from the OP, recruiting 2021 turning into a spitting contest etc. It makes me think that some posters here are employed by these firms.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 91Joe95
ON Facebook, now rash of fake Chinese websites that appear to be real with huge discount pricing that take your money and get nothing. I got ripped off for $100 on a 'great' deal i though on a weight set. Never got it but they took by $100 from paypal. This weekend saw a LLBean site and then looked a little further and it was bogus. But facebook keeps it up on their site for weeks. Facebook is evil.
I started the process to buy an item off Facebook last year (I have since deleted my Facebook account). The price looked great, but it was obvious that the post/ad was not written by a person who spoke English as their native language. I researched the company and their website stated that they were based in the US. I then read their reviews. Every single review was a 5 star. Literally 100% of them. I could give everybody on this page a million $ and AT LEAST one person would find something to complain about. That's how I knew it was fake.

A few months later, the company popped back up on my news feed. It was an interesting read. There were a lot of good reviews, obviously written by people who did not speak English as a native language. There were also a lot of angry people who did make a pretty good attempt at speaking English.
 
It certainly did not. Folks on the right perceive it as such because Fox News has been telling them for 20 years that they and they alone are Fair & Balanced and all other news sources are biased. It’s core to their viewer retention strategy. Your statement just underscores their success in warping your perception to their benefit.
In fairness, Fox dropped that slogan several years ago.

No longer Fair and Balanced
 
It certainly did not. Folks on the right perceive it as such because Fox News has been telling them for 20 years that they and they alone are Fair & Balanced and all other news sources are biased. It’s core to their viewer retention strategy. Your statement just underscores their success in warping your perception to their benefit.

Oh geesh.
I don't watch Fox News.
Have you tuned into CNN lately? Are you going to tell me it isn't biased?

LdN
 
ON Facebook, now rash of fake Chinese websites that appear to be real with huge discount pricing that take your money and get nothing. I got ripped off for $100 on a 'great' deal i though on a weight set. Never got it but they took by $100 from paypal. This weekend saw a LLBean site and then looked a little further and it was bogus. But facebook keeps it up on their site for weeks. Facebook is evil.

did you fall for the fake bow flex Dumbbells? They are 110 lbs, shipped from China for $100 total. No way that was going to be legit
 
I got rid of cable in 2015, just using Sling for football season but watching pretty much nothing on it but football. Then in the fall of 2016 I got cable back, figuring I could use it to watch both football and cable news election coverage. I was shocked at how bad cable news was. Once you go away from it for awhile, when you come back it looks ridiculous. And that was before Trump won the election and they ramped up their ridiculousness way further.

Someone said earlier that if you get something for free then you're the product. I agree. I think it's good to find a good source for news and pay some for it. But incredibly, cable news is both awful AND you pay for it, although lots of people are only paying for other stuff they want to see, like football, and are forced to pay for cable news at the same time.
 
It certainly did not. Folks on the right perceive it as such because Fox News has been telling them for 20 years that they and they alone are Fair & Balanced and all other news sources are biased. It’s core to their viewer retention strategy. Your statement just underscores their success in warping your perception to their benefit.
A few years ago, my Dad told me about an interview of a successful PSU Journalism student. The interviewer asked him why he chose journalism, to which he replied he “ wanted to change the world “. That is a rotten motivation compared to telling people the truth. You would think somebody straight out of school would have some level of idealism when it comes to objectivity..
I watch very little television news, mostly because it is so bad. I am not interested in the personalities involved. They have a 24 hour platform but don’t have enough actual news reporting to fill more than 15 minutes. I would guess that the way most media outlets are now functioning, objectivity is something they do not perceive as something the public values.
I find it impossible to simply watch anything without constantly questioning all of the decision processes about who , what and how the reporting was determined.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PSUHEART
Oh geesh.
I don't watch Fox News.
Have you tuned into CNN lately? Are you going to tell me it isn't biased?

LdN


They are all pushing what they believe will be attract you again. It's news as commerce.

I'm surprised that no one in this thread has stated 'its on all of us to analyze the issues'.

I watch it all, left, right, popular, barely heard of and I read editorials, again left/right and in various places. I analyze and assess the best that I can. That's an adult in the information age. IMHO, we have to teach a similar process to our children -- pay attention, read, assess, analyze and go from there.

Otherwise, we just have a bunch of whiny Americans blaming 'the media' or CNN or FOX for our disagreements. We aren't victims because we can find the details and use information to inform our decisions.
 
Another unintended consequence is how mainstream media has had to do the same to keep up; if Facebook is going to allow a group of a million people to dialogue about whether or not certain politicians are actually part of a secret, devil worshiping, cult of pedophiles then guess what? TV news need to be as big and hysterical. I think this is less true in print media, but still - 'news' anymore is about who can be first and most outrageous. I'll give it to Rush Limbaugh though - he was doing this stuff on his show decades earlier but without the internet as a bullhorn it was mostly limited to anyone who actually bothered to tune into his program.
Limbaugh is the biggest dumber downer that ever lived.
 
A few years ago, my Dad told me about an interview of a successful PSU Journalism student. The interviewer asked him why he chose journalism, to which he replied he “ wanted to change the world “. That is a rotten motivation compared to telling people the truth. You would think somebody straight out of school would have some level of idealism when it comes to objectivity..
I watch very little television news, mostly because it is so bad. I am not interested in the personalities involved. They have a 24 hour platform but don’t have enough actual news reporting to fill more than 15 minutes. I would guess that the way most media outlets are now functioning, objectivity is something they do not perceive as something the public values.
I find it impossible to simply watch anything without constantly questioning all of the decision processes about who , what and how the reporting was determined.

I read someone say once that the death of TV news began with the 24 news network CNN, which isn't a commentary on CNN per se but rather on the idea of broadcasting "news" 24 hours a day. When you have that much time to fill you start coming up with junk to fill the time and eventually coming up with junk becomes your modus operandi.
 
I read someone say once that the death of TV news began with the 24 news network CNN, which isn't a commentary on CNN per se but rather on the idea of broadcasting "news" 24 hours a day. When you have that much time to fill you start coming up with junk to fill the time and eventually coming up with junk becomes your modus operandi.

The inherent dilemma with news as a product is a) you don't want it to be funded/controlled by the government because of the dangers in 'state controlled' media, and b) you don't want it to be reliant on advertising/outside money for sustainability since that will lead to hysteria and fear-mongering (basically, the clickbait nonsense we have now) since those ideas drive viewership in a way that 'good news' doesn't. Find places where those two things don't exist, and you get closer to what should be agenda-less news.
 
I read someone say once that the death of TV news began with the 24 news network CNN, which isn't a commentary on CNN per se but rather on the idea of broadcasting "news" 24 hours a day. When you have that much time to fill you start coming up with junk to fill the time and eventually coming up with junk becomes your modus operandi.
It all went to hell the day little Jessica fell into that damn well.
 
Why is it that almost every form of the visual and performing arts are so negative!
No thank you, I have no need to see yet another negative thing.
Comparing today’s negative music to the positive vibes from the doo wop era says quite a lot about us.
 
Oh geesh.
I don't watch Fox News.
Have you tuned into CNN lately? Are you going to tell me it isn't biased?

LdN

There's a lovely mindset in a segment of the country that looks at their news source of choice and treats it as truth and anything different is propaganda than brainwashes and blinds people to the truth. If your a Fox devotee you understand that anything from CNN or the NYT is by definition false and George Soros is the embodiment of evil. If you're a CNN, MSNBC, or NYT fan, you understand that anything from Fox is untrue, WSJ is a diabolical tool of corporate elites, and the Koch brothers are the source most bad things in the world today. If you're moderate, you're almost as bad as the evil ones and may be one of THEM trying to conceal your true feelings. The really bad news: while probably a minority of the country, it is these fine folk who currently run both major parties and many of the news sources.
 
did you fall for the fake bow flex Dumbbells? They are 110 lbs, shipped from China for $100 total. No way that was going to be legit

it wasn't that one, but something similiar. knew was too good to be true but the price got the better of me so I went for it. It was a $99 lesson. But these websites are very real. They have pictures of the real thing, reviews, etc....and many times their name is something very similiar to what they are selling. For instance, the one this week was LLbean.buzz . so the way i knew it was fake was the .buzz vs .com but the websites are incredibly real with all the real stuff on it. the fact that facebook doesn't police that is wrong as how can you be taking money for advertising of a fake website stealing people''s money. That is exactly what is happenning and Facebook knows these sites are fake. And not like it shows up for 24-48 hours and then facebook figures it out and takes it down. They are around for weeks and months.
 
Why is it that almost every form of the visual and performing arts are so negative!
No thank you, I have no need to see yet another negative thing.
Comparing today’s negative music to the positive vibes from the doo wop era says quite a lot about us.

Actually it says your scope of visual, performing arts and music is really narrow.
There is some excellent music being made today that is very positive.
Here is one of my current favorites.
Both Krungbin and Leon Bridges are very good. Also check out J.S. Ondaro

or this...although its not in my wheel house it seems to be pretty popular...
http://www.jerseyboysinfo.com/
 
Last edited:
ADVERTISEMENT