The Death of Truth: How Social Media and the Internet Gave Snake Oil Salesmen and Demagogues the Weapons They Needed to Destroy Trust and Polarize the World – and What We Can Do About It
by Steven Brill
View on GoodreadsFollow the ad money behind a disinformation site and you can find a mainstream brand that never meant to fund it. Brill, a co-founder of NewsGuard, traces the damage to Section 230 and a platform business model that profits from anger. At the end of the day, his answer is to change the law, the algorithms and what schools teach.
Core ideas
- Anger pays: Sensational, angry content drives engagement, engagement draws advertising, and algorithms built to maximize profit push divisive material.
- Weak guardrails: Platform trust-and-safety teams were marginal mitigators at best, and generative AI could make the problem dramatically worse.
- The fixes: Amend Section 230 to reach dangerous algorithms, end online anonymity, have the FTC enforce platforms' user-protection terms and expand K–12 digital literacy.
Published2024
Pages336
ISBN9780525658313
ReadDec 2024
