Shocking documentary by filmmaker Jeff Orlowski that alerts us to the manipulation of our lives by social networks.
The documentary aims to capture our attention, so that we begin to worry about the use we make of social networks, something that it achieves in an excellent way, it was impossible not to pay attention from beginning to end.
We have to worry when we hear the creator of one of the algorithms say that he does not use the browser or the "tools" he made himself. There's a very bad reason for that to happen.
Other developers, explain to the camera the rules they have imposed on their children inside the house regarding social networks. Since they are part of that technology industry, they know what the main goal is and they worked to achieve it.
One of the strong points of the documentary, are the testimonies of people who worked in all the social networks with important positions in the development area. Facebook, twiter, instagram, pinterest, youtube, etc. Some of them have been promoting for years their proposals to be more ethical in the construction of these social applications.
Most of us who do everyday life on the Internet, whether for personal or work reasons, know that we are the product, we are constantly manipulated by social networks, we are induced at all levels, they influence our mood and our behavior.
Several of the interviewees state that it is impossible to escape this manipulation, they themselves have been victims of their own creation. This is the dangerous thing, if even the people involved in the development of these companies can be manipulated, that we can expect from the billions of people who use the networks and do not have the capacity to perform this manipulation.
We have reached the stage where the algorithms induce us to act in a certain way, to buy certain products, to use a specific brand of clothing. Even that algorithm plays with our emotions, it knows that we like it, that we want to see it, it handles emotions to make us think in some way.
This manipulation of the consumer has always existed in the advertising media, before it was the newspapers, then the radio, with time came the television. The masses have always been manipulated through these media. But now, social networks have taken that manipulation to a higher level, never before seen in the history of humanity.
The data centers where all our life is stored, manage them in real time, have enough information to make predictions of how we will act in front of a certain event. They are super computers more advanced than our brain, even though it seems something taken from a science fiction movie, it is something that exists, it is our reality.
While watching the documentary and listening to the explanations about the power of these supercomputers, the third season of Westworld came to my mind. In that fictional story, they presented a computer with an advanced A.I. that was capable of making almost 100% accurate predictions about the behavior of the population. It is frightening to know that there is something similar to that fictional story.
The numbers of depression among teenagers in the United States have grown rapidly since social networking became an essential part of our lives. So have the numbers of suicides. Something that should be studied, to protect the population, especially the new generation that has grown up with this technology.
The documentary uses some dramatizations to see the effects of social networks on family relationships, it also uses the resource of dramatization to see how the algorithms work, that part I find funny, an actor who worked in the excellent series Mad Men, is the one who interprets the algorithm.
I am a defender of technology and its positive advances for humanity. In the documentary, social networks are not pointed out as bad, those who end up using them badly are ourselves. On the one hand, the ambition of the owners of those big technological companies who only want to make more money, and on the other hand, the users who are subjected by supercomputers that process the information and induce us to behave in a certain way.
Something that is also exploited by political interests, now one country can directly influence another, manipulate the population and take it down a path, without the need for armies. We are seeing the birth of a true and powerful Skynet.
Many of the people who carry the testimonies in the documentary, seek to raise awareness among the population, so that we learn to detect the dangers of the networks, so that we can face the problem and take the necessary corrections for the good of humanity. Although it may seem exaggerated, the well-being of future generations will be affected by the decisions made today.
Excellent documentary that I recommend you watch, it will make you think and could make you change your routine in social networks.
My Ranking: 3.9/5
Trailer
POSTER
