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want me to nudge him you nudge away
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welcome to watch mojo and today we're
counting down our picks for the top 10
maddening things about the social
dilemma i was the the director of
modernization at facebook for five years
this is a totally new species of power
and influence we now have markets that
trade
in human futures for more discussions on
topics like this
check out our channel context tv for
this list
watch mojo founder and ceo ashkan karbes
frushan
sat down to watch netflix's docudrama to
look at arguments and counter arguments
relating to the social dilemma have you
watched the social dilemma
what are your opinions let us know
number 10 politicians won't have all the
solutions
following with another video beautiful
let's squeeze in a sneakerhead before it
starts
as society comes to better understand
just how influential
and powerful tech platforms have become
it seems that those we entrust to define
the rules
politicians are struggling as much as we
are to keep up with the changing times
in tech
just look at the questions that congress
had for zuckerberg well how do you
sustain a business model in which users
don't pay for your service
senator we run ads and it doesn't stop
there i'm probably going to be dead and
gone and i'll probably thankful for it
when all this [ __ ] comes to fruition
it makes you wonder is leaving our fate
up to politicians when it comes to
social media
in our best interest number nine the
biggest nuance is who's abusing the
tools
the social dilemma raises several
fascinating arguments
for example it equates the tactics
amplified by social media
with the totalitarian propaganda of
world war ii
but ultimately this is what you get when
you produce a documentary with
like-minded people
a fairly one-dimensional view that omits
many other details
one nuance worth noting is that using
media for propaganda is nothing new
we're all looking out for the moment
when technology would overwhelm
human strengths and intelligence when is
it gonna cross the singularity replace
our jobs be smarter than humans
a century ago william randolph hearst
used his own newspaper to lead america
into the spanish-american war
remember that line to his photographer
you furnish the pictures
and i'll furnish the war more recently
rupert murdoch's fox was accused of
being a key voice and pushing for the
iraq war
the only difference is that these
technology tools are used by others
and not the owners number eight why this
time may indeed be different
you may have heard of murphy's law and
of network effects
ultimately text growth has proven to be
exponential and compounded by how much
the tools have been
optimized for you your feeds refresh
nature
is built to give you a dopamine hit each
time like a slot machine
what was sorely lacking in the
documentary though was execs at these
firms who refused to let their kids use
these tools
indeed it's not like child psychologists
are designing these
tools rather they're designed by tech
designers whose inherent biases may come
through in the final product
as data scientist kathy o'neil puts it i
like to say that
algorithms are opinions embedded in code
and that algorithms are not
objective number seven we enabled this
monster
and we love it it's easy to blame others
for building these tools
but in theory this is also on us the
users after all
we're the ones using them if mobile
phones and 24 7 world wide web access
is addictive
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it should be because you have the world
in the palm of your hand
and you don't want to pay for it or at
least not much
enter advertising that's how media and
communications have always worked
so as individuals and parents isn't the
responsibility
also on us can we just blame big tech
of course as a counterpoint it's also
worth considering that even if you
don't use google or facebook products
they still track you
all through the web there's no real way
to opt out
so if it looks and feels like your own
private truman show
that's because it is number six
the hypocrisy part one what makes this
debate
really frustrating is the lack of
awareness on all sides
and they built this parallel money
machine
we had such envy for that for one some
of the criticism stems from
envy slash jealousy google a west coast
technology company founded in stanford
mastered the greatest ad platform in the
history of media
this is what every business has always
dreamt of
it then took over new york's madison
avenue then hollywood
it's very efficient and many find it
problematic that the system works with
so few people at the helm
so as humans we've almost lost control
over these systems it's true that
effectively
since google and facebook's mastery of
advertising systems
the most brilliant people have been
recruited to figure out why users
click on ads and not solve the climate
crisis
pandemics world hunger or any other
notable cause
now granted as the documentary states
the only industries that refer to
clients as users
are drugs and software and those who
built and profited from the systems are
suddenly displaying
millionaires remorse number five the
hypocrisy
part two equally annoying is the fact
that those who built and profited are
now crying foul
case in point chamath was the head of
growth at facebook
early on and he's very well known in the
tech industry for
pioneering a lot of the growth tactics
that were used
to grow facebook at incredible speed
chalmette pali hapatia was a notable
growth hacker at facebook
who's now an influential investor even
though this kind of testing happens in
all sectors and industries
roger mcnamee was an early supporter and
investor in facebook he's since penned
zucked waking up to the facebook
catastrophe a book trashing mark
zuckerberg
and facebook i mean it's exactly the
kind of thing that a
that a hacker like myself would come up
with sean parker portrayed by justin
timberlake in the social network
christy what do you like to drink went
from bad boy to benevolent sage with a
conscience
is it a case of better late than never
the
you know kevin systrom and instagram
it's all of these people
understood this consciously
and we did it anyway number four with
great power
comes great responsibility but also
greed and hubris
i worked at twitter my last job there
was the senior vice president of
engineering
sure with power comes great
responsibility to diagnose the problem
you need to follow the money and indeed
the rise of ad-supported business models
has shifted the balance to views
engagement watch time attention
his scrolling speed is slowing nearing
the end of his average session length
decreasing outlook pull back on friends
and family when asking
why don't notifications just show the
photos they're notifying you about well
it's the same reason a mall would make
you go around to take the next escalator
to go one floor higher
your attention is their currency the
social dilemma brushes by one of the
main questions about these firms
are the right people at the helm
zuckerberg started facebook to rate
women at harvard
allegedly took ideas from the winklevoss
network harvard connection
and then parlayed that into his empire
today clearly not for seeing what he'd
unleash but it's not just the leaders at
the top
even the soldiers who execute on the
field appear to be in the dark about the
massive stakes
you could shut down the service and
destroy
whatever it is 20 billion dollars of
shareholder value
20 billion we're talking multiple
trillions ultimately it's true that
having a small group of like-minded
individuals building products that
affect 2 billion people
is far and away problematic when the
smartest people have been recruited by
tech giants to figure out how to get
users to click on ads
it may lead to a less than desirable
outcome
number three regulation is fed accompli
america's embrace of laissez-faire
economics means that when things go to
the extreme
they really go to the extreme much of
the country's interpretation of
monopolies traces back to the sherman
antitrust act of 1890.
the previous times the u.s went after
companies on monopolistic grounds
were when they broke up john
rockefeller's standard oil
the big telco a t and more recently
microsoft microsoft's antitrust lawsuit
paved the way for google's emergence
for so long as our economy works in that
way and corporations go unregulated
they're going to continue
to destroy trees to kill whales while
government may not have
all the answers indeed regulation is
needed because corporations don't act in
the best interest of all stakeholders
we're learning as we go and certainly
there is a lot of value that something
like a facebook or certainly google
provides but at the end of the day
there is some social responsibility that
we all have
and unfortunately there's always going
to be bad people in this world but we
need to provide
some uh rails in which they have to
operate within
and you need to give them disincentive
that discourages them from acting badly
do you think we're going to get there
have to number two you are the product
we now have markets that trade in human
futures
a popular saying in the valley is that
if you're not paying for the product
you are the product you are followed
every single action you take
is carefully monitored and recorded but
it also speaks to the web's ultimate
benefit
which is a democratization of the web
and the disintermediation of industries
that also accumulated massive power
due to inefficiencies in the marketplace
data may indeed be the new oil
it's valuable algorithms can predict
what you will want or like in the future
time spent in front of each image stared
at is logged
full psychological profiles of you are
stored at each social platform
they control your social habits more
than you do
and you are sold to the highest bidder
where you're gonna go
i can predict what kind of videos will
keep you watching i can predict
what kinds of emotions tend to trigger
you but throughout history
laissez faire capitalism tragically
rewards bad behavior
remember honore de balzac's behind every
great fortune
is a crime maybe not literal crime but
an exploitation of a loophole
you can hate the player or the game
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number one it'll get worse before it
gets better
one of the problems with facebook is
that as a
tool of persuasion it may be the
greatest thing ever created
ultimately there might not be any
scenario where things get better before
they get worse
fake news is creating chaos more than
ever eventually this culminated in a man
showing up with a gun deciding that he
was going to go liberate the children
from the basement
of the pizza place and yes social media
amplifies that
and i can tell facebook give me a
thousand users who look like that
facebook will happily send me thousands
of users
that look like them fake news travels
six times faster on twitter than real
news
while we've seen firsthand meddling in
elections and actual violence in far-off
places like myanmar
it's not inconceivable for civil war in
america and the end of civilization here
in the usa as well
it's easy to blame social media for the
destabilization of foreign governments
but that's been happening for centuries
the only difference is that technology
has replaced more conventional weapons
if you like the social dilemma make sure
you watch context tv's documentary about
capitalism
fox in the hen house a spectre is
haunting america
for decades no one dared to utter the
term
socialism let alone propose socialist
thought
but these days capitalism is on the
defensive
fending for itself as even the largest
beneficiaries of the system
are starting to question its fairness
and equitable nature
can't do it by just pissing around at
the margins of the problem
we've got to go straight to the heart of
capitalism and overthrow it
i don't know why they're still
socialists on the planet it has
never worked
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you