This one was kind of intense. It first ran in November, 2022, a week after Elon Musk finalized his purchase of Twitter. It was recorded, in fact, just before Musk closed that particular deal. It’s a handy reminder that there was a lot to say about social media even before Musk started trying to improve things.
A book’s worth, in fact: my guest, for one of The Paul Wells Show’s first episodes, was Max Fisher, whose book The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Brains and Our World discusses how the basic goal of all the big social-media platforms — “engagement,” or time spent online — led the big platforms to find techniques to keep us coming back for more. Techniques that also tap into a human weakness for tribalism, strong emotion, polarized debate, and revenge.
Fisher’s reporting on these issues for the New York Times made him a finalist for a 2019 Pulitzer prize. He left the Times a few months after this interview, teasing a “new venture” whose nature he’s said he’ll reveal this autumn. Meanwhile he’s left us with this book, which adds a hefty dose of social and perceptual psychology to his on-the-ground reporting in a handful of countries. And with this interview.
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