Antisocial Media

How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy

By: Siva Vaidhyanathan

Narrated by: Jack Garrett

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 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.

Facebook grew out of an ideological commitment to data-driven decision making and logical thinking. Its culture is explicitly tolerant of difference and dissent. Both its market orientation and its labor force are global. It preaches the power of connectivity to change lives for the better. Indeed, no company better represents the dream of a fully connected planet "sharing" words, ideas, and images, and no company has better leveraged those ideas into wealth and influence. Yet no company has contributed more to the global collapse of basic tenets of deliberation and democracy.

Both authoritative and trenchant, Antisocial Media shows how Facebook's mission went so wrong.

©2018 Siva Vaidhyanathan (P)2018 Recorded Books

A must for social media literacy!

How Facebook is changing the fabric of our lives and effects on society at large

I am not a Facebook fan, but even though I am not a facebook fan, I have to say that these books seem to be exagerating some asp

I am not a Facebook fan, but even though I am not a facebook fan, I have to say that these books seem to be exagerating some aspects.

I have to say that YES, there are evident problems with the reach of social media platforms (like Facebook, but not only limited to Facebook...However, I feel that the root problem is "us" the users and the developers. In other words, the problem is us, humans. It makes arguments like "guns don't kill people; People kill people..." valid arguments.
I've been in a listening binge (for lack of a better word) of books related to social media reach and it effects to "the fabric of existence" . And It feels that we are not well prepared to study the topic with certainty. At times it feels like the authors are promoting the social media's benefits instead of critisizing them, (while the author seem to be trying to convey the contrary)..

Finally, I recommend the listen, but listen with a grain of salt, pepper, and analizis.

a modest look at what Facebook can repair

In the wake of the capital insurrection, this book needs to be part of the conversation concerning the contributing factors which fuel extremism in the world. The author explains why Facebook plays an outsized role in building bridges among like minded family members and burning bridges among different groups. Individual users of Facebook might have the notion that it truly brings people together. That may well be their experience... but this is why Antisocial Media is important to read or listen to. If you live in a benevolent bubble towards Facebook, be prepared to have your bubble broken.

The only criticism I have of the book is the lack of extremist examples from the left. You could be led by the book into assuming that only fringe groups on the violent right are misusing Facebook. I don't believe this is a good way to build alliances to counter the overwhelming power of Facebook. There is ample proof of misinformation and disinformation on the right. Isn't it naive and a simplistic reduction to state the danger only in terms of the alt-right? 70 million people voted for President Trump. They were not dunces whom he could lead blindly by his charism. Many of those millions voted for him because they saw violence on the left of the spectrum. This group has a negative story about Facebook that also needs to be told or better yet: included in the thoughtful work here presented.