Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy

Siva Vaidhyanathan

Paperback, 288 pages

9780190056544

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.

Contents:

The Problem with Facebook Is Facebook

1. The Pleasure Machine

2. The Surveillance Machine

3. The Attention Machine

4. The Benevolence Machine

5. The Protest Machine

6. The Politics Machine

7. The Disinformation Machine

Conclusion: The Nonsense Machine