Review of The Social Dilemma (2020) by Thejuliepenguin — 18 May 2022

This didn't get bad reviews, but I was surprised it didn't get near universal appraisal. My first thought was that it might be because of the lack of awareness that this is a serious problem, lack of understanding the point of the film, or genuine bad actors rebelling against the call out the movie gave them. Well ding, ding, ding, I'm a winner.

The point of the film is not hard to figure out, as it is explicitly stated. At the beginning, they were asking these technologists what the problem was and by the end, they agreed the problem was misinformation and the inability of the general public to agree on basic facts. The fact that so many negative reviews failed to realize this is both prophetic and disturbing. As per usual, the typical radical actors have misrepresented this movie as either a shill for the right or the left, depending on which serves said actor best. Apparently this movie is critical of left wing protests and has the ultimate goal of regulating the media so as to prevent the sheeple from opening their eyes and fighting for equality. Oh, but also this movie is promoting radical left wing thought and has the ultimate goal of censoring conservative thought so as to prevent the sheeple from opening their eyes... They just don't want you to see the truth! Say the negative reviewers who range from authoritarian socialists to Qanoners who, if you don't know, have radically different ideas of what that "truth" might be.

Some negative reviews actually rated it that way because the drama was genuinely bad, and that's fine, though I think it's weird to review a documentary the same way you would review a drama. That's the sole reason I'm not giving it a perfect 10/10. Society is only just beginning to pick up on the fact that this is a problem, so I appreciate the larger audience this movie can reach. We clearly have no idea what the proper solution is, so the movie is really just an introduction to the problem with tips to mitigate it, rather than solve it. Anyone who thinks there's someone out there sitting on the solution to misinformation while still respecting free speech is out of their mind. (Yes, delightfully I did find a review that claimed that these technologists know what the solution is but they're not allowed to say. Nothing like a conspiratorial review for a movie that calls out the spread of conspiracy theories.) The first step is just to get everyone to agree it is a problem, and clearly we're not there yet.