The Netflix documentary Smart Society: A Dilemma is on social media! Facebook lists seven points to refute the allegations in the film

Facebook, the global community leader, has naturally become a target for a new Netflix documentary, Smart Society: A Dilemma, which describes the social chaos caused by social media, and a rare counter-attack, listing seven refutations.

Facebook, which has been doiled by controversy over privacy, fake news, hate content and meddling in the U.S. election over the years, has come under intense pressure from public opinion to confront Netflix's new documentary, which attacks social media, and is even more unhappy that its insights are not fair at all, but are being influenced by a stigmatizing social platform.

The 93-minute documentary interviews former executives of tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, exploring technology addiction, fake news and conspiracy theories flooding platforms, rigging elections, advertising algorithms and many other topics.

Facebook believes the impact of social media is worth exploring, but criticising Smart Society: Dilemma is biased and is simply demonizing the community platform.

Facebook points out that the impact of social media is an issue that needs to be discussed, but Smart Society: A Dilemma uses sensational content to cover up the real issues that need to be discussed, distorting community platforms and shaping them as scapegoats for difficult and complex social issues than exploring technology. 」

Facebook attacked the film for being biased, not interviewing any respondents who are now working on social media, without any dissenting experts, and for not acknowledging the current efforts of the community platform to address the issues, instead making those who are no longer in the industry talk.

The content of the batch of documentaries was biased, and Facebook clarified it one by one

The article largely refutes the documentary's seven attacks, accusing social platforms of luring users into addiction, using them as commodities, algorithmic flaws, privacy disputes, extremism, the use of election fraud and the proliferation of fake news.

1. There is no incentive for users to become addicted

Facebook has clarified that its News Feed service is not designed to increase the amount of time users spend, but rather to select valuable information for them. As in 2018, they've been able to create more meaningful community interactions and downgrade recommendations for content such as viral movies, resulting in a 50 million-hour drop in daily usage.

Facebook clarified that it was not developing products based on the idea of insanity, but rather wanted to pick more valuable content for users.

2. The user is not a product

At the same time, Facebook has repeatedly emphasized the practice of using users as commodities and selling data, and Facebook has emphasized that advertising is the business model in which the platform maintains its operations, but that it only informs businesses about the group characteristics of the people who watch them and does not disclose any personal information.

3. Don't demonize the algorithm

While the documentary's allegations about algorithms, Facebook's response to the use of algorithms to promote user experience is common, with algorithms and machine learning helping them recommend content that users might be interested in, and even Netflix, or Smart Society: Dilemma itself, relying on algorithms to recommend to their audiences.

4. Protect people's privacy

In addition to emphasizing prudent user protection, Facebook claims that it also gives users the right to manage their own data, and that it has a sensitive interface that does not allow partners to transmit private messages such as medical information to avoid inadvertently mastering people's privacy.

Facebook stresses that it strictly adheres to its rules to protect users' privacy, not only by not disclosing them to businesses, but also by accepting any sensitive information.

5. Minimization of extremes

Facebook admits that extremism and populism have a long history, even longer than community platforms, claiming that they have taken appropriate steps to minimize their spread and impact, such as reducing farm labels or fake news content, and stressing that such content represents only a very small part of the community platform.

6. Avoid interfering in elections

Facebook, which has been used by Russia to meddle in the 2016 U.S. general election, which is due in November, has stressed that it has well-established protections against interference by those with the will to interfere.

Facebook, for example, has only recently deleted more than 180 fake accounts in China that have co-interfered in political winds. The accounts post information about China's influence in Southeast Asia and support opposition to specific U.S. candidates, and Facebook claims that similar networks have been deleted more than 100 times.

7. Combat fake news and hate speech

The proliferation of fake news and hate speech has plagued Facebook for years, and the outbreak of the new coronavirus (COVID 19, commonly known as Wuhan pneumonia) in 2020 has caused a flood of fake news to flow on the platform.

But Facebook says any allegation that they let the platform spread fake news, or even profit from it, is wrong, with more than 70 fact-checking partners verifying content in languages around the world and 22 million hate speech deleted in the second quarter of this year.