Facebook didn’t seem to enjoy the documentary as much as the rest of us did
When Netflix released The Social Dilemma last month, it quickly became a huge talking point. The documentary claims to show “the dark side of social media, from the people who created it,” and highlights the supposed control that social platforms have over us rather than the other way around.
The documentary focuses on the easy ability to spread misinformation across social platforms (something Facebook, Twitter and Google bosses are all soon to be quizzed about by the US Government), and Facebook has issued a lengthy statement in response, which directly addresses this point.
“The idea that we allow misinformation to fester on our platform, or that we somehow benefit from this content, is wrong,” said Facebook in a blog post. “We know our systems aren’t perfect and there are things that we miss. But we are not idly standing by and allowing misinformation or hate speech to spread on Facebook.”
The platform also addressed the implication from the documentary that ‘Facebook users are the product, not the platform’, by further explaining its revenue model and stressing that they rely on ad-funding to allow users to connect for free, and that no user data is sold to third parties.
The film is largely centred around data-mining, public surveillance, exploitation of users and subsequent catastrophic effects on mental health. Read Facebook’s full response here, and check out the trailer for The Social Dilemma below, if you haven’t already.
