Just as I was sitting down to watch The Click Trap, I received a phone call from an unknown mobile number. Upon answering, I heard a recorded message that was allegedly from HMRC threatening me with legal action – an obvious scam, as a bit of research confirmed. The call played on my mind as I watched this documentary because it acted as a reminder that the online scam ads that the film discusses are not a new or unique thing. The platform might be bigger but scammers are still out there using rather older technology to try and fleece people – perhaps more than they are online, or certainly more aggressively; online scam ads sit waiting passively to be clicked but a phone call that threatens you is a rather more immediate attempt to trick you into compliance.
The Click Trap is about the plague of the modern world – disinformation, fake news and hate speech, in particular how it relates to advertising., either through hate sites hosting ads by big name companies that have bought into Google Ads and have no idea where their ads are appearing or social media sites hosting ads from scammers, disinformation sites and those encouraging hate and even violence against certain groups. It’s certainly a problem and one that the tech giants have been oddly reluctant to tackle (when Facebook and Instagram say that they can’t detect hate speech, I’m reminded that they are very effective at finding even the mildest forms of nudity and removing it). Certainly, targeted ads should give everyone the creeps as an example of just how much these companies know about us, and the algorithmic reinforcement of beliefs seems highly unhealthy, especially if those beliefs are on the dodgier end of conspiratorial thinking, tribalism and criminality. This documentary delves deeply into all this, with significant real-world examples given, from the January 6th insurrection to the murder of MP Jo Cox. Why, then, did the film leave me feeling rather uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons?
Here’s the main problem: this is a film with an agenda. It’s not an objective documentary by any means, but rather a polemic in favour of bringing the Wild West, free speech internet under control. This is rather problematic in a film that is railing against disinformation. There is no counterpoint in the film that hints at the dangers that the EU’s Digital Services Act might hold, nor is there any concern expressed about allowing any group to decide what we can or cannot see online, or even what beliefs we might be allowed. At one point in the film, Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate asks the age-old question of “who watches the watchers” in terms of holding digital authorities to account, with the strong implication that it will be him and people like him. But who, we might wonder, then watches him? Who ultimately gets to decide where free speech ends and dangerous disinformation begins? Or, for that matter, what is disinformation as opposed to a different opinion? Or where criticism ends and hate begins? We all think that we know it when we see it, but would we all mark the timeline in the same place? Probably not. As we see in all the hot topic, incendiary issues of our time, both sides believe themselves to be on the side of the angels. While the more extremist voices revel in their hatred, most see themselves as the truthtellers. The film implies more than once that sites like Breitbart spread hate speech simply for clicks and to make money from feeding outrage, but I’m not sure that’s true – I think that most of the people involved in extremist websites genuinely believe what they say, which is why they keep on saying it. Sure, I think many get so caught up in their collective madness that they no longer know where to draw the line, egging each other on and no longer distinguishing between fact and fiction – but the idea that they are simply harvesting hate clicks for profit seems naive.
My issue with letting pressure groups decide what is or isn’t ‘hate’ and ‘disinformation’ and then targeting advertisers accordingly is that it is always wildly subjective. If you believe a group of people – let’s say Tories – are inherently evil, then you can say anything about them and no one is going to demonise you for it. But hate speech is hate speech, and if you only fret about it when it is aimed at groups that you believe have ‘protected characteristics’ or whatever sort, you are probably being hypocritical. I have yet to see a campaigning group that isn’t inherently biased towards one political POV or the other and that doesn’t turn a blind eye to (or, worst still, excuse) their equally nasty pronouncements, generalisations, disinformation or cultural bias.
The Click Trap also suggests – more than once – that the news sites of the internet are nothing like the trusted traditional newspapers that are in decline and I have to say that I slapped my head in dismay at this point. Let’s leave aside the long and inglorious history of the British press in whipping up moral panics and using mass hysteria, bigotry and outright lies to sell papers and make money – the very thing that the film is criticising online platforms for doing – but we all know that some of our biggest news organisations routinely now mix opinion with activist journalism, selectively report facts and make no effort to correct mistakes. Not to mention the fact that the British newspapers all teamed up to fight even the mildest levels of regulation being imposed on them (something else that the film criticises the tech companies for). Print newspapers have long been untrustworthy and to hold them up as paragons of virtue is at best naive, at worst deliberately disingenuous.
Look, I know that social media is a cesspit and that we can never believe anything that we see there, even if it fits into our preferred narrative. But what’s the alternative? Going back to a world of official gatekeepers of information? Allowing governments or NGOs or pressure groups to decide what is or isn’t the truth? That feels like a slippery slope. There are plenty of countries that control what their people see and believe, and I’m not sure that they are places that we want to emulate.
The Click Trap covers a serious problem and – like the best propaganda documentaries – does so compellingly. Like the YouTube algorithms feeding viewers more of the same, it probably reinforces what the people who will watch it want to hear while failing to challenge those beliefs or offer a rebuttal. Ironically, the film’s central argument is why we should treat what it has to say and the solutions it suggests with a grain of salt.
The Click Trap plays at the Raindance Film Festival on June 27th 2024.
DAVID FLINT
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