“A deluge of content sorted by incentivized algorithms and shared instantaneously among aligned believers has enabled us to immerse ourselves in environments tailored to our own beliefs and populated with our own preferred facts.”
So writes Renée DiResta in the era-defining book Invisible Rulers. She traces the history of human-to-human influence from the local tavern in preindustrial times to the early days of radio and television, and the present day incentive structures on social media that cut in favor of nastiness, lies, and vilification.
In a previous episode of Wrestling Darkness, Lawrence Lessig attributed this phenomenon to the profit motive of Big Tech companies. Realizing that their users’ search, scrolling, and clicking preferences offered them a gold rush of data to be exploited for targeted advertising, companies like Google and Facebook kicked off an arms race, supercharging curation algorithms to induce addiction.
Lessig cited and recommended DiResta’s book during the interview. I read it, loved it, and asked her to sit down with me for this fascinating conversation.
The episode that led to this one is embedded below, and don’t miss DiResta’s interview with Mona Charon of The Bulwark.
Wrestling Darkness 4: Age of the Fantasist
My guest in episode 4 of Wrestling Darkness is Professor Lawrence Lessig who explains in his essay, The Age of the Fantasist, how and why algorithmic media came to reward narratives that lie to us.
