‘Social Dilemma’ calls into question the ethics behind social media engineering: technology expert

A technology expert says that the Netflix documentary, the ‘Social Dilemma’ calls into question the ethics behind social media engineering and emphasises the impact of how online media platforms track users.

Founder of social media company ‘Socially Acceptable’ Nazreen Ebrahim says that there needs to be a much wider discussion around this topic.

The docudrama focusses on the exploitation of online users for financial gain.

Ebrahim says it also highlights how users develop an addiction to social media without even knowing it.

“The more you use your social networks, your mobile devices, the more you are tracked. You are tracked through a profiling that is done of you. The word that we use to describe that is surveillance.”

She adds: “The Social Dilemma helped us to understand addiction, through how the algorithms work, but how do algorithms actually work besides addiction, through classifying us, surveilling us and tracking us in ways that are more negative than positive needs to be talked about.”

The podcast below is of the interview with tech expert from Socially Acceptable Nazreen Ebrahim:

Produced by SABC’s Newbreak’s Salma Patel and Matthew Veeran