The Chaos Machine

This is an amazing compendium of evidence about how tech platforms - and in particular, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook - built algorithms that are directly responsible for widespread polarization, violence, and a global shift to the right of politics, fueling the hatred and division that's widespread today.

If you want to understand why our political situation is so dire, this is a great place to start.

My only criticism is that the book is somewhat repetitive, and that by the end, you know the playbook, but you just keep seeing more instances of it.

This is a very in depth presentation of facts on how technology can impact society and social movements. It describes in detail how Facebook aimed to increase the number of friends users had (they wanted to surpass the Dunbar limit of 150) by enforcing it through changes in their algorithms. Then it discusses the Trump election and the rise of right-wing posts, videos and groups in social media. Chapters 4 and 5 covers the rise of machine learning algorithms and how all platforms started promoting and amplifying more outrageous/radical content. And how the average user's time on these platforms skyrocketed around 2016. And then, Trump's and Bolsonaro's election in the USA and Brazil respectively, which were fuelled by social media. The rise of alt-right movements. The pandemic and all the misinformation campaigns during that period. It’s a full exposition of how social media had real life dire consequences.