“It’s easy to think that it’s just a few stupid people who get convinced,” warns the engineer who created the rogue Youtube algorithm, “but the algorithm is getting smarter and smarter every day.

Pizzagate? Went overground when Facebook’s algorithm promoted their groups to users it had identified as being susceptible to conspiracy theories – leading to a man turning up at a restaurant with a machine-gun to liberate non-existent child hostages from a fictional basement. The rise of the Flat Earth movement? It’s all thanks to a Youtube algorithm that recommended the conspiracy videos to viewers hundreds of millions of times. Their unpredictability sees a former operations manager of Facebook lament that “they’re controlling us more than we’re controlling them,” meaning it’s very difficult for social media companies to stop them spreading fake news – and thus eroding the concept of truth. The film, which debuted at Sundance Film Festival in January, takes a premise that’s unlikely to set the world alight with its ingenuity – particularly as it’s much the same as that of Netflix stablemate The Great Hack, ie that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al aren’t exactly creating a utopia.ĪI and the algorithms behind social media are also flagged as a terrifying potential destroyer of social cohesion.

These are the subjects of Netflix’s brilliant new 90-minute docu-drama, The Social Dilemma – and it might be the most important watch of recent years. And, of course, the main problem: the fact that you logged into social media in the first place. The constant feeling that you’re being boiled alive in a cauldron of hate.

Honking clowns of governments who rule by fomenting voter conflict. Credulous corona-spiracists spoiling for punch-ups with 5G masts. If you’ve logged onto social media recently, you may have noticed the odd clue that all is not right in the world.

Netflix flat earth documentary