FACEBOOKISTAN

“Like” it or not, Facebook wants you to share everything, but how much information are they willing to share with you?

 

A new documentary takes a close look at Facebook, its laws, powers and its influence on privacy and freedom of expression.

JAKOB GOTTSCHAU

 

For the last 18 years has produced numerous award-winning documentary series, which have been shown in more than 50 countries. These include: "Late Lessons from Early Warnings", which examined the history of the global environment and "Bringing Life to Space”, a documentary exploring man’s desire to settle in outer space.

 

Jakob Gottschau has also produced and directed DR's ambitious series “100 years of immigration” which won a TV Oscar as the year’s best Danish documentary production.

 

His latest productions are "Cyberwar" - which explores social media in repressive countries, "Facebookistan" and “When the Ice Disappears”, a three part series about the Arctic. 

 

• CPH DOX  
• Rotterdam International Film Festival  
• ZagrebDox  
• San Sebastian Human rights film festival  
• Against Gravity Poland  
• Giffoni Film Festival Italy  
• Dokufest Prizren  
• Bergen International Film festival  
• Ghent Flanders Int. Film Festival  
• Geneve, Forum on Human Rights

 

My intention with this film is to give a new and refreshing understanding on how Facebook governs the biggest public space for discourse in the world, against a backdrop of openness and transparency.

 

For almost two years I worked on a three part series of half-hour documentaries exploring how social media and Facebook gave a democratic voice to people in repressive countries. It was a kind of ode to the new media which had opened up horizontal communication amongst people on a scale never seen before. But whilst making these films I began to question the mechanisms behind some of the US IT giants, in particular Facebook. At the same time, a good friend of mine had his Facebook account shut down because he had posted a 50 year old picture of some happy nude hippies. He had great difficulty in getting any explanation from Facebook; the company basically didn’t communicate with their users at all. This sparked the beginning of my research into Facebook’s censorship of its users, exploring how the company handles core democratic values, like freedom of expression and privacy. I wanted to find out whether the company behaves in a transparent and accountable way.

Let IT dok! 2017