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The Social Dilemma

Explores the dangerous human impact of social networking; tech experts sound the alarm on their own creations. Explores the dangerous human impact of social networking; tech experts sound the alarm on their own creations. Explores the dangerous human impact of social networking; tech experts sound the alarm on their own creations.

• Jeff Orlowski-Yang
• Vickie Curtis
• Davis Coombe
• Tristan Harris
• Jeff Seibert
• Bailey Richardson
• 642 User reviews
• 90 Critic reviews
• 78 Metascore
• 8 wins & 22 nominations total

Top cast 61

• Self - Google, Former Design Ethicist …

• Self - Twitter, Former Executive …

• Self - Instagram, Early Team

• Self - Google, Former Experience Design Consultant …

• Self - Facebook, Former Operations Manager …

• Self - YouTube, Former Engineer …

• Self - Apple, Former Director of Corporate PR …

• Self - Firefox & Mozilla Labs, Former Employee …

• Self - Twitter, Former Senior VP of Engineering

• Self - Facebook, Former Executive …

• Self - Facebook, Former Engineer …

• Self - NVIDIA, Former Product Manager
• (as Randima 'Randy' Fernando)

• Self - Founding Father of Virtual Reality …

• Self - Facebook, Early Investor …

• Self - Harvard Business School, Professor Emeritus
• (as Shoshana Zuboff Ph.D.)

• Self - Stanford University, School of Medicine, Medical Director of Addiction Medicine
• (as Dr. Anna Lembke)

• Self - Anna's Son
• (as James Lembke)

• Self - Anna's Daughter
• (as Mary Lembke)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Jeff Orlowski-Yang was a heavy Facebook user before making the film. He's not now.

Self - Facebook, Former Operations Manager : We've created a system that biases towards false information. Not because we want to, but because false information makes the companies more money than the truth. The truth is boring.

• Crazy credits "Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse." - Sophocles
• Alternate versions After its Sundance premiere in January 2020, the documentary was updated to include a segment on the growing number of social media conspiracy theories related to COVID-19.
• Connections Featured in De vooravond: Episode #1.17 (2020)

User reviews 642

As disturbing as it is accurate..

• mickycarbine-252-94514
• Sep 16, 2020
• How long is The Social Dilemma? Powered by Alexa
• September 9, 2020 (United States)
• United States
• Official Netflix
• Official Site
• Song Đề Xã Hội
• Exposure Labs
• Argent Pictures
• The Space Program
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Runtime 1 hour 34 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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‘The Social Dilemma’ Review: Unplug and Run

This documentary from Jeff Orlowski explores how addiction and privacy breaches are features, not bugs, of social media platforms.

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By Devika Girish

That social media can be addictive and creepy isn’t a revelation to anyone who uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like. But in Jeff Orlowski’s documentary “The Social Dilemma,” conscientious defectors from these companies explain that the perniciousness of social networking platforms is a feature, not a bug.

They claim that the manipulation of human behavior for profit is coded into these companies with Machiavellian precision: Infinite scrolling and push notifications keep users constantly engaged; personalized recommendations use data not just to predict but also to influence our actions, turning users into easy prey for advertisers and propagandists.

As in his documentaries about climate change, “Chasing Ice” and “Chasing Coral,” Orlowski takes a reality that can seem too colossal and abstract for a layperson to grasp, let alone care about, and scales it down to a human level. In “The Social Dilemma,” he recasts one of the oldest tropes of the horror genre — Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist who went too far — for the digital age.

In briskly edited interviews, Orlowski speaks with men and (a few) women who helped build social media and now fear the effects of their creations on users’ mental health and the foundations of democracy. They deliver their cautionary testimonies with the force of a start-up pitch, employing crisp aphorisms and pithy analogies.

“Never before in history have 50 designers made decisions that would have an impact on two billion people,” says Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google. Anna Lembke, an addiction expert at Stanford University, explains that these companies exploit the brain’s evolutionary need for interpersonal connection. And Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook, delivers a chilling allegation: Russia didn’t hack Facebook; it simply used the platform.

Much of this is familiar, but “The Social Dilemma” goes the extra explainer-mile by interspersing the interviews with P.S.A.-style fictional scenes of a suburban family suffering the consequences of social-media addiction. There are silent dinners, a pubescent daughter (Sophia Hammons) with self-image issues and a teenage son (Skyler Gisondo) who’s radicalized by YouTube recommendations promoting a vague ideology.

This fictionalized narrative exemplifies the limitations of the documentary’s sometimes hyperbolic emphasis on the medium at the expense of the message. For instance, the movie’s interlocutors pin an increase in mental illness on social media usage yet don’t acknowledge factors like a rise in economic insecurity . Polarization, riots and protests are presented as particular symptoms of the social-media era without historical context.

Despite their vehement criticisms, the interviewees in “The Social Dilemma” are not all doomsayers; many suggest that with the right changes, we can salvage the good of social media without the bad. But the grab bag of personal and political solutions they present in the film confuses two distinct targets of critique: the technology that causes destructive behaviors and the culture of unchecked capitalism that produces it.

Nevertheless, “The Social Dilemma” is remarkably effective in sounding the alarm about the incursion of data mining and manipulative technology into our social lives and beyond. Orlowski’s film is itself not spared by the phenomenon it scrutinizes. The movie is streaming on Netflix , where it’ll become another node in the service’s data-based algorithm.

The Social Dilemma Rated PG-13 for dystopian speculation and some graphic images of violence. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Watch on Netflix .

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‘The Social Dilemma’ Trailer: Netflix Doc Details How Social Media Manipulates Its Users

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To some, social media is evil, and Netflix ’s upcoming “ The Social Dilemma ” documentary is going to tell you why. The streaming service unveiled the trailer for its upcoming title, which premieres September 9 and promises an in-depth — and thoroughly harrowing — look at how social media platforms and algorithms manipulate individuals and contribute to issues such as viral conspiracy theories, teenage mental health issues, rampant misinformation, and political polarization.

The film’s interviewees include Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology; the co-inventor of the Facebook “Like” button, Justin Rosenstein; Tim Kendall, former President of Pinterest and former Director of Monetization at Facebook; Cathy O’Neil, author of “Weapons of Math Destruction”; and Rashida Richardson, Director of Policy at the AI Now Institute.

“The Social Dilemma” is directed by Jeff Orlowski, who previously created hit nature documentaries such as “Chasing Ice” and “Chasing Coral.”

“The algorithms control what we see, when we see it, how we see it, with no regard for the truth or for humanity,” Orlowski said in a statement. “These platforms are driven by a business model that values attention above quality, and the algorithms will systematically push users to more and more polarized and extreme thinking in search of anything that will keep us engaged.”

IndieWire’s David Ehrlich praised “The Social Dilemma” in his B+ review out of Sundance in January and noted that the documentary offered a compelling argument for viewers to begin thinking about their social media usage differently.

“Is ‘The Social Dilemma’ persuasive enough to convince a MAGA zealot to stop binge-watching Ben Shapiro nonsense and buy a subscription to a newspaper? It’s hard to say,” Ehrlich said in his review. “But the film will definitely make you more cognizant of your own behavior — not just of how you use the internet, but how the internet uses you. And it will do so in a way that feels less like an intervention than it does a wake-up call; Orlowski and his subjects recognize how the internet has created a simultaneous utopia and dystopia, and they aren’t under any delusions that we’re able to wish it away. Their documentary isn’t instructive so much as directional, and thereby most fascinating for the implications it leaves you to consider on your own time.”

Check out the trailer for “The Social Dilemma” below:

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Why The Social Dilemma is the most important documentary of our times

Netflix’s new docu-drama doesn’t just recruit silicon valley whistleblowers to explain why they regret building the likes of facebook and twitter, says alexi duggins , it lets them explain why they might have unwittingly started society’s destruction – and how to prevent it, independent premium, subscribe to independent premium to bookmark this article.

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I f you’ve logged onto social media recently, you may have noticed the odd clue that all is not right in the world. Credulous corona-spiracists spoiling for punch-ups with 5G masts . Honking clowns of governments who rule by fomenting voter conflict. The constant feeling that you’re being boiled alive in a cauldron of hate. Extremism. Fake news. Mental health crises. And, of course, the main problem: the fact that you logged into social media in the first place.

These are the subjects of Netflix ’s brilliant new 90-minute docu-drama, The Social Dilemma – and it might be the most important watch of recent years. The film, which debuted at Sundance Film Festival in January, takes a premise that’s unlikely to set the world alight with its ingenuity – particularly as it’s much the same as that of Netflix stablemate The Great Hack , ie that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al aren’t exactly creating a utopia.  

Where its brilliance lies is in laying bare a vast range of complex problems with compelling clarity. Its masterstroke is in recruiting the very Silicon Valley insiders that built these platforms to explain their terrifying pitfalls – which they’ve realised belatedly. You don’t get a much clearer statement of social media’s dangers than an ex-Facebook executive’s claim that: “In the shortest time horizon I’m most worried about civil war.”

The commonly held belief that social media companies sell users’ data is quickly cast aside – the data is actually used to create a sophisticated psychological profile of you. What they’re selling is their ability to manipulate you, or as one interviewee puts it: “It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behaviour and perception. It’s the only thing for them to make money from: changing what you do, how you think, who you are.”  

The idea that we can ignore the effects of social media or avoid its influence is dismissed out of hand. We head into classes at Stanford University, whose psychology professors teach ways that tech can be used to reprogramme the way your brain works until addiction results. It’s even worse for teens, we hear, sparking a must-watch segment that feels like the digital equivalent of when Jamie’s School Dinners pointed out that parents should stop their children gorging on turkey twizzlers.

“Social media starts to dig deeper and deeper down into the brain stem and take over kids’ sense of self-worth and identity,” explains ex-Google employee Tristan Harris as one of the impressive dramatic sequences sees a pouting preteen pose for selfies overlaid with filters that distort her features until she looks like a cartoon character. Graphs showing spiralling teen suicide rates sit next to a teary-eyed speech from Facebook’s ex “VP of Growth” warning students that the constant desire for likes he’s created “leaves you more vacant and empty”.

AI and the algorithms behind social media are also flagged as a terrifying potential destroyer of social cohesion. Their unpredictability sees a former operations manager of Facebook lament that “they’re controlling us more than we’re controlling them,” meaning it’s very difficult for social media companies to stop them spreading fake news – and thus eroding the concept of truth. 

The rise of the Flat Earth movement ? It’s all thanks to a Youtube algorithm that recommended the conspiracy videos to viewers hundreds of millions of times. Pizzagate ? Went overground when Facebook’s algorithm promoted their groups to users it had identified as being susceptible to conspiracy theories – leading to a man turning up at a restaurant with a machine-gun to liberate non-existent child hostages from a fictional basement. “It’s easy to think that it’s just a few stupid people who get convinced,” warns the engineer who created the rogue Youtube algorithm, “but the algorithm is getting smarter and smarter every day. Today they’re convincing people that the Earth is flat, but tomorrow they will be convincing you of something.”

We might live in a post-Cambridge Analytica world. But despite it being public knowledge that Vote Leave and Trump’s 2016 election campaign harvested voters’ Facebook data on a gigantic scale, The Social Dilemma still manages to find fresh and vital tales of how these platforms destabilise modern politics. A Harvard Business School professor dismisses the idea that we can avoid their political influence by revealing Facebook’s “massive scale contagion experiments” which made users vote in the US midterm elections – without them even realising they’d been motivated to do so. Russia’s Facebook hack to influence the 2016 US election? “The Russians didn’t hack Facebook. They used the tools that Facebook made for legitimate advertisers,” laments one of the company’s ex-investors. Harris explains that there is now a market where “state actors” pay to destabilise democracies across the world. According to this documentary, social media now represents an existential threat to the survival of nations.  

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But the thing that makes this documentary so utterly important is that it offers the rarest commodity in current times: hope. Regulation is a must, it argues, with its website, thesocialdilemma.com, offering resources for parents, actions to help combat disinformation and ways to sign up to Harris’s Centre for Humane Technology which aims to change the culture in the tech industry as well as encouraging politicians to legislate. “We can demand that those products be designed humanely,” says Harris. “We built these things and we have a responsibility to change them.” Absolutely. The first step is watching this phenomenal documentary – and encouraging others to do so.

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The technology that connects us

Also controls us.

The dilemma

Never before have a handful of tech designers had such control over the way billions of us think, act, and live our lives.

The Mental Health Dilemma

A 5,000 person study found that higher social media use correlated with self-reported declines in mental and physical health and life satisfaction.

— American Journal of Epidemiology, 2017

The Democracy Dilemma

The # of countries with political disinformation campaigns on social media doubled in the past 2 years.

— New York Times, 2019

The Discrimination Dilemma

64% of the people who joined extremist groups on Facebook did so because the algorithms steered them there.

— Internal Facebook report, 2018

take action

Help change how technology is designed, regulated, and used .

Share the dilemma

Reboot your use

REbuild the System

2 Primetime Emmy Awards

38M viewers in our first 4 weeks

Webby award winner

From the creators of Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral, The Social Dilemma blends documentary investigation and narrative drama to disrupt the disrupters, unveiling the hidden machinations behind everyone’s favorite social media and search platforms.

a youth-led debate on regulation

As policymakers debate how to regulate social media, we’re inviting students to join the debate by uploading a 2-minute video with their proposed policy solution by March 21, 2022 for a chance at a $500 scholarship and an appearance on Newsweek’s podcast The Debate .

host your own screening

Be part of our Virtual Tour and join the thousands of others who are hosting conversations about The Social Dilemma using our discussion guides and promotional tools.

take a social media reboot

That toxic feeling? It’s not by accident, it’s by design. Take back control with our 7-day Social Media Reboot featuring tips to realign your relationship with technology from experts featured in the film.

our start-up grant winners

The young people most impacted by exploitative technology can also be the ones to help re-engineer it. Meet the inspiring winners of our start-up grant, a competition organized in partnership with LookUp.Live.

our first impact report

We’ve been humbled by the response to the film and the impact we have achieved together. Check out highlights from The Social Dilemma’s first four months in our impact report.

“Perhaps the single most lucid, succinct, and profoundly terrifying analysis of social media ever created for mass consumption.” — IndieWire

“so relevant and of-the-moment it’s practically already in the future” — Hollywood Reporter

“ The Social Dilemma may finally convince you that we’re being watched, manipulated, and misled by unscrupulous platforms and attention-harvesting algorithms.” –Vanity Fair

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‘The Social Dilemma’ on Netflix Will Convince You To Finally Delete Facebook

Where to stream:.

• The Social Dilemma
• documentaries

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nature of the Crime’ on Max, a Documentary Probing the Flaws of the Parole System and the Idea of Rehabilitation

Stream it or skip it: ‘super/man: the christopher reeve story’ on max, a heartbreaking documentary rife with tragic irony, stream it or skip it: ‘biggest heist ever’ on netflix, a doc about a curious couple of cryptocurrency scammers, where is heather morgan, aka razzlekhan, from netflix's 'biggest heist ever' now.

While watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix, a new documentary about the potentially devastating impact of social media on the world, I tried very hard not to check my phone. Yet even as I listened to Tristan Harris, president and a co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and a former Google employee, talk about the dangers of social media addiction, my fingers itched to refresh my Instagram feed. That’s not, this documentary argues, entirely a personal failing on my part. It’s because Instagram, and the many social media apps like it, have been designed to get users to give their service as much as our lives as we can possibly give. And, once we’ve given that to them, they use that information to predict and change our behavior.

You’ve probably heard that line before, particularly if you made an attempt to understand the Cambridge Analytica data hacking scandal that plagued Facebook in 2018.  The Social Dilemma— which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and was acquired by Netflix shortly after—doesn’t exactly reveal any shocking new information, but it does contextualize it in a way that may scare you. The basic gist: If you thought you were safe from manipulation via Silicon Valley—if you were too smart, too technologically savvy, or too strong-willed for that—you thought wrong. No one is safe, not even the former Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest executives who go on record in this film to say how messed up they think this whole thing is.

Director Jeff Orlowski (known for his environmental documentaries, Chasing Coral and Chasing Ice ) has scored a lot of candid interviews, with the main narrative led by Harris, who’s made something of a career of speaking out about the tech industry’s immoral ways. These interviews are as fascinating as they are horrifying.

“What I want people to know is that every single action you take [online] is carefully monitored and recorded,” says Jeff Seibert, a former executive at Twitter. “Exactly what image you stop and look at, for how long you look at it.”

Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist who is considered one of the founders of virtual reality tech, thinks the age-old adage that “we are the product” when it comes to social media is “too simplistic. It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product. … That’s the only thing that there is to make money from—changing what you do, how you think, who you are. It’s a gradual change, it’s slight. If you can go to somebody and say, ‘Give me $10 million and I will change the world 1 percent in the direction you want it to change…’ it’s the world! That’s worth a lot of money.”

“The way to think about it is 2.7 billion Truman Shows,” says early Facebook investor Roger McNamee, of the way Facebook caters a feed to each individual user. “Each person has their own reality with their own facts. Over time, you have the false sense that everyone agrees with you because everyone in your news feed sounds just like you. And once you’re in that state, it turns out you’re very easily manipulated.”

What’s slightly less fascinating is the dramatization featuring Santa Clarita Diet actor Skyler Gisondo as a Facebook-addicted teen, and Mad Men star Vincent Kartheiser as the personification of the evil algorithm that keeps him addicted. While it’s obviously supposed to keep audiences engaged between sometimes-boring interviews with executives, it comes off as simply silly, not to mention outdated, considering most teens no longer use Facebook. The melodrama of those scenes makes me wonder if The Social Dilemma will be mocked in 50 years’ time, á la the 1936 anti-marijuana documentary Reefer Madness that became a musical spoof in 1998 starring Alan Cumming and Kristen Bell.

It’s also a little weird to be watching this searing indictment of the tech industry on Netflix, one of the biggest tech giants of them all. Did Netflix not take all of the manipulative and addiction-forming strategies of these social media apps and apply them to the film industry? I mean, autoplay? The algorithm? The fact that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings once said his company’s greatest competition was sleep? While YouTube does come up in regards to conspiracy theory rabbit holes, the subject of streaming is otherwise never mentioned—perhaps unsurprising, given Orlowski’s previous relationship with Netflix, which released his film Chasing Coral.

But mostly, The Social Dilemma is all too convincing in its message that Silicon Valley has been handed an unprecedented level of power thanks to technological advances, and that it’s not handling that power in an even remotely ethical way. You may come away from The Social Dilemma convinced to delete your Facebook account. But even if you do, the damage has been done. And at this point, is unclear if the tech industry—even if it woke up with a conscious, or was forced to have one in the form of government regulation—has the power to fix it.

Watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix

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