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Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy


Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy

Paperback by Vaidhyanathan, Siva (Professor of Media Studies, Professor of Media Studies, University of Virginia)

Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy

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ISBN:
9780190056544
Publication Date:
13 Jan 2022
Language:
English
Publisher:
Oxford University Press Inc
Pages:
336 pages
Format:
Paperback
For delivery:
Estimated despatch 22 - 23 May 2024
Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy

Description

If you wanted to build a machine that would distribute propaganda to millions of people, distract them from important issues, energize hatred and bigotry, erode social trust, undermine respectable journalism, foster doubts about science, and engage in massive surveillance all at once, you would make something a lot like Facebook. Of course, none of that was part of the plan. In this fully updated paperback edition of Antisocial Media, Siva Vaidhyanathan explains how Facebook devolved from an innocent social site hacked together by Harvard students into a force that, while it may make personal life just a little more pleasurable, makes democracy a lot more challenging. It's an account of the hubris of good intentions, a missionary spirit, and an ideology that sees computer code as the universal solvent for all human problems. And it's an indictment of how "social media" has fostered the deterioration of democratic culture around the world, from facilitating Russian meddling in support of Trump's election to the exploitation of the platform by murderous authoritarians in Burma and the Philippines. Both authoritative and trenchant, Antisocial Media shows how Facebook's mission went so wrong.

Contents

Introduction Chapter 1: The Pleasure Machine Chapter 2: The Surveillance Machine Chapter 3: The Attention Machine Chapter 4: The Benevolence Machine Chapter 5: The Protest Machine Chapter 6: The Politics Machine Chapter 7: The Disinformation Machine Conclusion: The Nonsense Machine Acknowledgements

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