Well here we are 2020, forrest fires, riots, protests, and a divided country. All the chaos has caused me to dramatically rethink my “social” connection and how I want to experience a digital world. This set of thoughts was reinforced by the latest Netflix Film The Social Dilemma by director Jeff Orlowski.

The Social Dilemma is a documentary film that explores how invasive tactics developed by social media companies have caused many of the problems that we are currently experiencing in our divided political landscape. The film’s dark overtone blends the typical talking heads style with a set of actors meant to represent the average middle class American family. Most of the focus of this film is on Tristan Harris, an ex-Google employee and now head of The Center for Humane Technology. Listening to Harris and several other key innovators describe their concerns stirs the curiosity that perhaps we do not know what is really going on. This provocation is certain and a worthwhile self investigation that each human needs to go through. Are we aware of what is happening to us when we are online?

While I agree with the tone of the film that social media has morphed into the creepy arena of Big Brother 1984 style, I have a deeper sense this is not social media’s fault but a failure of the tech companies to realize human beings have a dark side and given the slightest nudge can fall prey to it’s tyranny.

The Facebook Pixel

One of the key features to understanding the mess we are in with tech is to pull from one code example. Facebook uses code snippets that are willingly embedded into a company’s website so when User or Human Being visits they can then be tracked. This allows the marketing and a remarketing process to unfold. This is not conspiracy or fake news —- all you need is a Facebook business account and a website. Both are very easy to set up, Facebook supplies the code, the code is inserted into the header of your website page or pages and the companies marketing team and budget do the rest. See the Facebook Pixel site.

This Facebook pixel is neither good or bad. In fact, if you are a positive person and are a goofball like me and search for things like hair dye, balloons, gold necklaces, vacations, or concert tickets, then that is what is going to populate in the ads in your feed. How does this work? Once you visit the site, the facebook code goes to work, the marketing department of that website or brand then spends ad revenue on placing ads in front of the facebook people who have visited the site. It behaves like a tracing device. Imagine you go to a department store and somehow while in the store your information is magically scanned and within a couple days you receive a mailer postcard with a discount to the store you just visited and showing you the item you were looking at in the store. Retail stores do this with their own branded credit cards or memberships and it is expressed when they ask for your phone number or email in person. This system is all based on the assumption that the business can get you to their website in the first place and once they do then the compounding effect can kick in. It is my intention to not suggest that Facebook is the only company that employs code snippets, I am just the most aware of the Facebook pixel because I have used it.

Here is the Rub

Not everything that exist online is positive. Not everything is teddy bears, rainbows, and sugar kisses. Some stuff on the internet is highly negative and outright destructive. Conspiracy theory websites, guns, weapons, involuntarily-celibate mens groups, hate speech, extreme left and extreme right political groups, etc, etc uh… flat earth believers. I didn’t know a lot of these sites existed. But just because I don’t know about them doesn’t mean they do not exist. Doesn’t mean that they don’t use social media, the Facebook pixel or other code snippets and also doesn’t mean they do not use the same techniques that marketers use to promote their ideology.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

While I understand software developers created these monetization techniques, tagging, notification scripts, remarketing tools and made these platforms into the addictive global economic powerhouses, I cannot fully blame them or the technology as the root cause of these human problems. In a deeper way, I believe these problems are our Dark Side that are ever-present and always ready express outward. Think of the Evil Queen in Snow White. What makes her evil? She is not necessarily overt in that she is giving out nastiness at every turn. What makes her evil is that she wants to be the most beautiful and anyone who threatens her (Snow White) she is willing to crush. This character flaw in the Evil Queen is inherent in all humans. Character is defined by how we respond to something that upsets us, challenges us and is the base for existential thought and philosophy. This is what the film is tapping on.

And Technology has exposed the monster in each of us and it is terrifying to see. One of the video clips presented in the film was the arrest of a man who showed up at a pizza shop (#pizzagate) with an assault riffle due to a conspiracy website that promoted a rumor of a secret child trafficking ring. It is scary to understand a person online is reading this and getting all ramped up with the fear and negativity. And I admit that I am 100% guilt of doing the same thing. I have never showed up to someone’s house with a gun but I have certainly ripped into another person online with zero compassion for what or how they might experience what I was saying.

We all possess our inner Darth Vader, our inner Evil Queen and with the internet we have the privacy to poke around and explore the more nefarious sides of ourselves. The problems inside each of us are fed back, reinforced and can go quite far unchallenged.

It is vital after seeing how videos and highly emotional topics can kick around on Twitter and how private online groups can come up with false reports of pizza shops, that we learn to pause and not allow that part of ourselves (our fear response) hijack our brains and hijack our sensibilities. I chalk it up to not letting your Dark Vader/Evil Queen to drive your car. They are always in the car, but they don’t get to drive.

UX designers who interview Users or Human Beings do not interview in a way that investigates character flaws. Most of the time, User Experience is looking for how to take the pain out of an online journey and how to get to the conversion or the sale of a product more quickly. User or Human Experience has not evolved to try to address the morality of sales and the morality of ease. It is clear that (some, not all) Humans lack the self control to not let their Evil Queen run amok online.

Looking Forward

Something has to burst. Bust and Boom cycles help push innovation and progress and perhaps we are in a bust right now with digital morality. I mean the engineers of the social media platforms just made a Netflix doc on why they might have messed up.. eeekk! Where exactly we are on this cycle is yet to be known. I do not believe we are in optimism. I believe we are on the downturn and in heavy pessimism. The forward looking mind that I enjoy nurturing hopes that in the next Boom of tech growth will soon begin to show us a positive outlook and that more checks and balances to reward the Lighter and Better part of our natures will be the driver. Perhaps it’s too late for some, but the next wave of User or Human Beings will push higher ideals.

Counteractive considerations to curb the negative.

1. Currently selling platforms do not require a legit state issued business license. That could change! It would be really easy to do. Creating an account that has an ad boosting capability could be harder to get. Facebook doesn’t require a business license to create a business account.

2. Charge back — if a company takes money for a negative ad and results in a negative or illegal event or crime then they should not be allowed to keep that money. Money should be given back to the source or charged a fine or penalty.

3. User profiles should be a little more difficult to create. I believe companies are working on this to try to control bots.

4. AI could be put to work to reflect back to people that they are about to post a negative response. And the comment could go into a holding for 30 seconds to one minute. That might deter some impulsive posting.

5. A positive or negative report like the screen time report could be given to a person. You posted mostly negative sarcasm this week. You were super positive this week.