Sixteen-year-old Austyn Tester, a rising star in the world of digital celebrities, builds his following on wide-eyed optimism and teen girl adoration as he tries to escape a dead-end life in rural Tennessee.
Reporter Nicolaas Veul decides to set up his first Instagram account and accumulate as many followers as possible. Over time, he becomes more interested in the social network's inner workings and uncovers a well-oiled machine based on fraud. While users enthusiastically give likes to selfies, a brisk business with user accounts is underway behind the scenes. There are huge numbers of fake profiles, and internet bots are producing new followers for those who want to feel more successful. Can anything on Instagram be believed?
Kim Kardashian Theory
Plugged In explores how social media and smart phone usage has an effect on our younger generations, those who are now born into a world technologically ready and know nothing else - and how hard it is to remove this element from their lives in these modern times. It looks into the design of social media being a purposeful tool used to keep people hooked in, taken away from face to face reactions and how the attitudes towards people through these mediums have become darker.
Using local media footage from the London Borough of Southwark spanning the past 20 years, this documentary discusses complex social issues including gang violence, knife crime, and mental and sexual health.
Examines Gabby's life through the curated lens she created and immerses the viewer in the world of social media sleuthing that was crucial to the case.
This is a thoughtful and mature documentary that considers whether online rage has real-world consequences. Baddiel has experienced antisemitic abuse on Twitter, where he has 785,000 followers. He has had brushes with what is called “cancel culture” and “callout culture”, when users have criticised his use of blackface on TV in the 1990s, for which he has apologised. He is also a self-confessed social media addict – by which he really means Twitter, his primary focus here – and self-aware enough to admit that while he feels he needs it to promote his work, he also understands that he has a psychological need for an audience, and by extension, for audience approval.
A chronicle which provides a rare window into the international perception of the Iraq War, courtesy of Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news outlet. Roundly criticized by Cabinet members and Pentagon officials for reporting with a pro-Iraqi bias, and strongly condemned for frequently airing civilian causalities as well as footage of American POWs, the station has revealed (and continues to show the world) everything about the Iraq War that the Bush administration did not want it to see.
Peer through the lens of a high profile political dissident, banished from the online world. After introducing the viewer to each of the five characters, the film recounts how each individual then came to lose their access to social media and the affect it had on them at the time, and since the event. With their stories told, they present the broader issues raised by their media de-platforming and what they foresee in their future in media and the whole of Western Culture at-large.
Kitten of vluchteling?
Ten years after the fall of Lehman Brothers, learn of the historic bankruptcy and cascade of events over a September weekend in 2008 that led to the worst financial crisis in generations. Andrew Ross Sorkin, CNBC anchor and author of the groundbreaking best-seller "Too Big to Fail," reports on how the nation and the world came as close as ever to a full economic collapse.
Using real cases, this documentary demonstrates the extent to which violent criminals can use social media to locate and manipulate victims.
A documentary about the Enron corporation, its faulty and corrupt business practices, and how they led to its fall.
A documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the world today. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money.
Posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond mogul, an Israeli conman wooed women online then conned them out of millions of dollars. Now some victims plan for payback.
Compulsive Twitterer, Elon Musk bought himself his favorite social network in 2022, and brutally shaped it according to his desires. This punchy investigation relates the stormy relations between the platform and the billionaire, and their impact on the public debate.
From Rickrolling to viral conspiracy theories, explore how an anonymous website evolved into a hub for real-world chaos in this documentary.
Using raw, firsthand footage, this documentary examines the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her children, and the terrible events that followed.
The pursuit of happiness (and the display of happiness on social media!) has become a veritable cult. Happiness has become a social imperative, just like slimness, beauty and success. To better understand this obsessive quest for happiness, journalist Marie-Claude Élie-Morin takes an in-depth and personal look into this seemingly pervasive trend that sometimes leads to painful consequences.
Emma and Eddie live two lives: one on social media and one in real life. The webcam couple is out to save their marriage by starting their own adult web-studio in Eastern Europe.