Have you watched the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” (released in France as « Derrière nos écrans de fumée » – “Behind our smokescreens”)?
In the context of the collective house arrest that many are living through today (rightly or wrongly – that is not the point), it takes on an extra flavour. That of power… the power of organisations, and that of individuals.
The documentary’s stated subject is the influence “social networks” have on our lives. Well put together, like many Netflix productions, it is a skilful blend of interviews with former Californian “tech” insiders and a short drama about the grip that merchants of “available brain time” – to borrow the phrase of a former head of French television channel TF1 – have on a family many can identify with… playing on emotions to create closeness and buy-in: a good classic. A great deal of know-how, then, from a conquering company that wins people’s leisure time at the expense of traditional operators, television in particular.
It is certainly a documentary worth watching, if one is not susceptible to the various conspiracy theories, because it can arouse or heighten anxiety. Which we can do without, especially at the moment.
Because the French title suggests that someone is pulling the strings: behind the mirror, the screen, the curtain, the smoke, there is always someone… And the commentators’ use of the word “repentant” to describe the engineers and scientists who open up sets the tone.
The original title seems better suited to what the documentary actually shows: a dilemma, two paths to choose between, both with their drawbacks. That is the usual meaning… The philosophical meaning is that of two contradictory propositions which nonetheless lead to the same conclusion…
The short drama follows the capture of a young adult’s attention. From the lure of friendships or romance, all the way to political manipulation. At the expense of his family relationships, his friendships, his studies, his freedom and perhaps his health. What drives the operators “behind the screen”? Attracting his attention in order to sell advertising, between two pieces of information he wants… Desire, yes, more than interest.
Hence the term “surveillance capitalism” used in the interviews, presented as so many confessions. A combination of two damning terms: capitalism (money) and surveillance. The angle is clear.
As for the advertisements, they are commercial, but political too – emotional, extreme… Given that the film was released on 9 September, in the middle of the American election, what a flavour!
Above all, a matter of emergence
Yet what emerges from these 90 minutes is more interesting than these “usual suspects”.
Almost all the interviews bear witness to a well-known phenomenon, though one many people detest: emergence. The unpredictable, often unintended consequences of human action.
None of what is happening was wanted – they can all swear to it. The platforms’ aim was to make connections easier, for everyone’s good. Platforms indeed, it should be remembered, and not just social networks: connecting people with each other, of course, but also connecting people with information that interests them (even if they don’t know it), with services and products they need (even if they are unaware of it). Audiovisual entertainment products too, of course.
The success of the international talent gathered in Silicon Valley companies has made it possible to create powerful algorithms, some of which are said to be capable of learning. And which would therefore escape their “creators” (Frankenstein, of course, comes to mind).
The question of autonomous artificial intelligence, and of the singularity, is not the subject of consensus among specialists in the field. If only because there is initial coding. With its biases, obviously, intentional or not.
And of course, some will accuse the “repentant” of lying to protect themselves. Because it is easier to look for culprits than to accept the complexity of our sociotechnical world. Actions must succeed or fail – not produce unexpected results. This is the eternal question of contingency. And of the bureaucratic management of decisions, and the related procedures, whose emergent effects are deliberately ignored – necessarily “perverse”, since they do not go in the expected direction: if the goal is not achieved, there must be culprits, whom power will bring to heel…
Available brain time rather than tracking
The game as presented therefore seems to be the usual confrontation between the powerful and the weak, between mercantile organisations and citizens.
Mercantile indeed – though they can of course accept public, political customers, preferably authoritarian ones. By using the cliché of a guilty Silicon Valley, the documentary and its commentary stay within the usual outline. State influence practices, including with digital tools, are not mentioned – except as customers of these merchants of attention… Here, implicitly, we find the usual retort: “why are you afraid of entrusting the State with data you share with Google (or others)?”
Yet – and all the testimonies in the documentary converge, as does the drama – the data hardly matter: they are just building blocks for identifying the “right” product and the appropriate stimuli to arouse desire. No personalised tracking, only an intermediate analysis that ultimately makes it possible to “profile” the consumer: a hyper-detailed “persona” (a fictional, stereotyped person used in modern marketing). And to capture their “available brain time” – or even “brain time being used by others”. Their product is our attention.
Would the use of our data by public, State, bureaucratic users – naturally keen to implement “good” decisions and to “protect” the collective against divergent or even antagonistic “individuals” – be something else?
If it were a matter of supporting public decision-making, adapting it through aggregated trends, one might think so. But even then, would bureaucrats agree to share the “governance” of a “strategist” State, which is more about power than about relationships?
Connection above all
And this is a third idea that emerges from watching this documentary.
What lies beneath, including in many analyses and comments, is the usual perception of “power” in our societies. Weberian power, the power of domination over bodies, hearts and minds… They want to control you – defend yourself, destroy the means of action of those who want to enslave you. Including by informing yourself through the products of a platform which, like the others, is fighting to capture your attention (but there is no “repentant” Netflix insider in the documentary)…
Yet what the documentary shows is the incredible power of relationships. Power as Hannah Arendt saw it.
You can switch off your phone, you can lock it in a box during dinner. You can protect yourself and your children from the malice of others, named or anonymous. Take legal action, exercise your legal power. Use your parental authority, or your powers of persuasion. Try to subdue the other.
Yet what you will have to fight against – and what seems impossible to resist – is the power of relationships.
Your child’s desire to have friends, and the importance of their opinion. As always, in the playground or elsewhere. Your thirst for recognition, for positive signals, for kindness too.
Dopamine, yes… but also the kind you get when you hold your loved ones in your arms, when you see each other, touch each other. And the kind, of course, that you miss so cruelly when it is forbidden to you. The documentary mentions the need to receive “likes”, “thumbs up”, “hearts” and its effects on your mood and your biology – since scientific “reasons” must be found. Yet these gaps in our daily lives are swept aside with a contemptuous wave of the hand, when one can die of boredom, of isolation, or of a lack of meaning in life…
Beyond the dilemma
So, of course, platforms capture our time – and not only the time we wish to devote to leisure, or to doing nothing, to welcome boredom… But they are not the only ones.
It is therefore an open competition for our attention – in which emotions are a powerful lever, as we see every day, as we often feel, and accept too, when they do us good.
So is this struggle for our attention a dilemma?
Choosing between access to “tailor-made” services, but with unwanted temptations, or a return to controlled “consumption”, freed from platforms? Knowing that there will in any case be other influences, of course. Since the trade in goods and ideas will have to take place by other means. The “usual” version of the dilemma…
Or accepting that the platforms’ influence is inescapable, and harmful, whether we choose to submit to it or to free ourselves from it. The “classic” dilemma.
Whatever the version of the dilemma, it is nevertheless possible to get out of this supposed dead end – which we would therefore have no choice but to accept – provided we carry out a conceptual reframing.
Using our degrees of freedom
This reframing can take different forms, from the most conceptual to the most practical.
Moving beyond the usual logic (true or false) to non-binary logics, which accept emergence and the unforeseen. The point is not to win or lose in a head-on struggle, to be right or wrong. But to do things differently. With what was not programmed or planned.
Thinking complexity (which is something other than “complication”) and acting accordingly, with finesse and uncertainty, rather than bureaucratically and with certainty. Being humble rather than giving in to hubris. Being ready not to be ready.
Seeing power as a relationship rather than as domination. And therefore paying attention to others. Without naivety, but giving them more credit than suspicion.
Thinking in sociodynamic terms rather than in terms of execution and roll-out, looking for degrees of freedom, new playing fields, rather than seeking to subdue or destroy the other. Thinking extension and alliances rather than containment and submission.
And very concretely, as regards our relationships, whether friendly or commercial, and the time we devote to them or have available: considering that if your friends, your children, your customers look for relationships on platforms and devote more energy, time and resources to them than to you, it is because your “offer” is not attractive enough. In content as in form.
So accepting to question ourselves in order to improve, rather than blaming others. Being creative, free, imperfect certainly. Rather than being passive, grumpy spectators, ultimately at the mercy of the flow, being active and engaged. Individuals – radically human.
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