Philip N. Howard

I first became aware of the work Philip N. Howard and the Oxford Internet Institute does through a report they put together for the US Congress on Russian interference in the 2016 election. This book expands on that research and comprehensively looks at how social media platforms are used for political persuasion (including spreading fear and disinformation). It does an excellent job of detailing the mechanisms that enable these anti-democratic moves. It's not as strong when addressing the socio-side of our technosocial conundrum, which is not what the book is about but which suffers a bit by not acknowledging the scope of anti-democratic movements and impulses that predate the internet, such as the development of a right-wing media sphere in the US and the ways the GOP harnessed nationalism and racism to overturn democratic institutions such as science, public education, and the traditional media. The idea that "more social media" would be a solution, so long as it is regulated to reduce the power of the "lie machine," sounds unfortunately like "the cure for hate speech is more speech." These platforms cannot be reformed to become more like journalism - they were build on a completely different set of values and those values are deeply embedded in their design and function.

That said, it's a valuable tour of what exactly is going on in the world and is especially valuable in widening the lens for Americans who tend to have a fairly parochial view of the harms of our current social media environment.… (mehr)