'The Social Dilemma' is a new release on NETFLIX that is essential viewing for all of us who are engaged in social media and use it regularly. It is a documentary/film featuring former employees of 'Big Tech' companies from Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter and others who have left their former posts and exposed a dark side of their work that they could no longer accept. Their objections can be summarized as the exploitation of users of social media to create a profile or model of people who are then targeted by advertisers. This modelling process is shaped by every website we visit, every 'click we make and every time we go online. These 'big tech' companies harvest the information about us that we provide and then target us with advertising that they are confident will interest us, based on the information we have. The result is that they make millions of dollars in a market where we become the product. It also has strong implications for how we are influenced in how we vote, how we think and the decisions we make.
In this podcast, Bishop Robert Barron discusses the documentary and its contents and gives us good advice on how to use the tools of social media in a temperate way and how to avoid becoming addicted to our phones and computers.