What connects amateur sleuths turning up at crime scenes, anti-social behaviour in schools and riots? Marianna Spring has spent one year investigating harmful behaviour on TikTok spilling out into the real-world. As well as crunching the numbers, Marianna tracks down TikTok users, victims and former employees to interrogate and expose how extremely high engagement on TikTok around particular topics appears to be creating these 'frenzies'. The documentary explores how users go to extreme lengths in order to get more engagement in a battle for followers and likes. Marianna investigates the role TikTok's algorithm and format plays in what’s happening and reveals insiders’ concerns about the app. The film seeks to find out if this is the real danger and what impact it is having on society.
We all project images of ourselves online - a curated identity that defines how we want to be perceived. But what temptations exist to embellish and what are the dark implications? In this episode, enter the world of Cyberbanging, where inner city youth are using social media to brag, conspire and incite violence; two African-American women bloggers who have turned the table on the trolls who threaten them; and the creator of Abdullah X, an online character who's trying to keep Muslim kids from falling under the spell of Islamic extremists.
Everywhere you go, you generate a cloud of data. You're trailing data, everything that you do is producing data. And then there are computers looking at that data that are learning, and these computers are essentially trying to serve you better. They're trying to personalize things to you. They're trying to adapt the world to you. So on the one hand, this is great, because the world will get adapted to you without you even having to explicitly adapt it. There's also a danger, because the entities in the companies that are in control of those algorithms don't necessarily have the same goals as you, and this is where I think people need to be aware that, what's going on, so they can have more control over it. We came into this new world thinking that we were users of social media and search engines. It didn't occur to us that social media and search engines were actually using us.
The way that wars are fought is constantly evolving. In the warfare of today and the future, it's the push of a button rather than the pull of a trigger, bringing disorder without a single soldier setting foot on the ground. The real-world battlefield has morphed from the bloody trenches of the front line into an age of cyber warfare. From collapsing all the infrastructure of a country to changing minds for elections, any threat you can imagine can be done.
We learn as much from victory as we do from loss. We employ strategies to gain the advantage, unconventional methods to overwhelm adversaries. One dedicated force steeped in mystique has always been part of war. Special operations, elite and unseen. Their presence felt by lethal attack. From the biblical era to the future of warfare, the battle environment is reshaped and redefined by special operations. Special Operations soldiers have come out of the trenches and are entering new domains of warfare.
In this sixth and final episode, the FBI escalates its pursuit of an elusive hacker, but he soon turns the tables by questioning the legality of a key tool in their investigation. We'll also find out how one man is being watched by the government for alleged Russian election interference. Is he responsible, or just a patsy for more powerful people? We'll have to get to the end to find out.
The documentary explores how users go to extreme lengths in order to get more engagement in a battle for followers and likes. Marianna investigates the role TikTok's algorithm and format plays in what’s happening and reveals insiders’ concerns about the app. The film seeks to find out if this is the real danger and what impact it is having on society.