Facebook Issues Official Response to Claims Made in
Netflix Documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’ download on
9jabook.com.ng
Most reviews of The Social Dilemma have actually been highly
critical, noting that while the documentary does make some valid
and important points, it descends into sensationalism, which
ultimately dilutes its key messaging.
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But clearly, it’s got Facebook concerned. The Social Network
generally stands pat on most criticisms and claims of this sort,
but with reports that many users have considered deleting their
Facebook and Instagram accounts after watching the documentary, the
company felt the need to issue a two-page, seven-point response to
its core points.
Facebook Social Dilemma response
Facebook’s responses are as you would
expect:
On social media addiction – “[we] prioritize meaningful social
interactions”
On people as the product – “we don’t sell your information to
anyone”
On algorithms – ” Portraying algorithms as ‘mad’ may make good
fodder for conspiracy documentaries, but the reality is a lot less
entertaining”
On data usage – “Despite what the film suggests, we have policies
that prohibit businesses from sending us sensitive data about
people”
On polarization – “The overwhelming majority of content that people
see on Facebook is not polarizing or even political”
On election interference – “the film leaves out what we have done
since 2016 to build strong defenses to stop people from using
Facebook to interfere in elections”
On misinformation – “The idea that we allow misinformation to
fester on our platform, or that we somehow benefit from this
content, is wrong”
Facebook has shared its opinions on all of these topics in the
past, so there’s nothing surprising in its responses. The only
surprise, as noted, is that Facebook felt the need to respond at
all – if anything, an official response from Facebook will only add
more fuel to the fire, and prompt more people to check out the
documentary.
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If Facebook felt a need to respond, it must have struck
a nerve, right? There must be something to it worth checking out.
Right?
And while Facebook’s responses are as expected, they do somewhat
misconstrue the core of some key elements.
For example, in response to the claim that ‘people are the
product’ on Facebook, Facebook twists that question to be about
personal data sharing, which is not exactly what the documentary
makers mean. Even if Facebook doesn’t provide your information to
advertisers directly, Facebook does indeed make a lot of money from
its advanced ad targeting systems, which utilizes people’s personal
information to better focus Facebook ads.
In this sense, people are the product, data is the product, and
Facebook has the most intricate database of personal information
ever created – even if it doesn’t, as Facebook notes, share those
insights directly with advertisers, as such.
You could argue that Facebook’s counter-claims on
polarization and misinformation are also a little misleading, but a
lot of it comes down to how you choose to answer the question, as
opposed to what the actual answer might be.
As has been well-documented, Facebook has turned a blind eye to
certain controversial issues and topics at times, from which it has
derived user engagement benefits, while various experiments have
shown that users can indeed become more politically-aligned via
algorithmic recommendations and selective blocking tools.