The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

This is an astounding book. I felt like I was really familiar with the problems caused by social media, I've got friends and family who have disappeared down the conspiracy rabbit hole. I've also read the excellent Stolen Focus by Johann Hari which explained how social media companies have destroyed our memory and ability to concentrate. This book still managed to shock me by how low the tech 'leaders' will go for personal success. As well as promoting dangerous conspiracies that have cost lives the companies have refused to act when people have been radicalised by lies on their platforms into ethnic cleansing, genocide and even promoting paedophilia. They know they are causing so much division and damage to society but they can't look past their goals for people spending time on their platforms no matter how much harm it causes, just so Zuckerberg, Musk or Page can add another zero to their already obscene wealth. Its time governments started to crack down hard on their practices!

Regardless of what you may have heard about the negative effects of social media, Max Fishers argues in his book "The Chaos Machine" (Little, Brown and Company, 2022) that the real story is far worse. That, in itself, is terrifying.The book and its authors do not fail in their effort to drive home this point. For those who are fond of social media, this is a bleak book that provides insight into an industry that is in dire need of public regulation.Fisher demonstrates that the industry is unable to self-regulate and become a positive force in societal development.The book combines grim data and anecdotes, linking major social media platforms to violence and political unrest in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. Platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube not only polarize political debates but also generate conspiracy theories, according to Fisher.In their design, programmers in various companies, under the orders of management, have fine-tuned their algorithms to highlight extreme content and allowed otherwise isolated individuals with extreme views to find each other. The platforms have pushed people into different echo chambers and rabbit holes, aided by algorithms, where opinions become more homogeneous and extreme.Social media can inflame your emotions - and it's a byproduct of the design. These are strong claims. Max Fisher is an international reporter for The New York Times. To support his arguments and claims, he cites academic experts, whistleblowers, and his investigative efforts. The root of the problem, he writes, is a profit-oriented, amoral mindset attributed to Silicon Valley leaders operating under the guise of "total freedom of expression," along with devilishly effective algorithms designed to maximize user engagement in terms of time and length.He asserts that the results have been catastrophic. Just as hate-filled radio broadcasts contributed to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, Facebook posts, built upon existing prejudices, have triggered the slaughter of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. They have also incited anti-Muslim violence in Sri Lanka and fueled anti-refugee riots in Germany, supported by enraged YouTube videos. Violence has decreased in correlation with Facebook being shut down, Fisher writes.In the United States, social networks have united anti-vaxxers, election conspiracists, and white nationalists, contributing to the brewing of the deadly Charlottesville rally in 2017 and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.What is clear is that despite repeated warnings, including from their employees, social media platforms have opposed reforms and only conducted limited moderation and fact-checking. Pandemic isolation has only exacerbated the role of social media as "a machine designed to distort reality through the lens of tribal conflict and push users toward extremes," Fisher writes.Beyond the book's indictment of social media lies an even more alarming one, involving human gullibility and our attraction to hatred and violence. This is not news to anyone familiar with human history. However, it suggests that our problems go beyond the idiosyncratic flaws of Silicon Valley.Bottom line: this is a book worth reading, providing readers with a deeper and well-founded insight into our era's major challenge: creating dialogue arenas for meaningful exchange in an unmanipulated manner.

OK, I admit I haven't read this book, just the blurb and a few reviews, so please don't let my words either put you off buying or encourage you to buy. As the father of two teenage boys, I'm certainly on board with what seems to be the book's central thesis, that smartphones, Tablets etc are adversely affecting the minds of young people. My eldest son is sixteen. I taught him to read when he was three. He was an avid reader from then on, of both fiction and non-fiction. We have a houseful of books, and he'd often pick out something from my collection to read, or react positively to my recommendations. He'd even pick up the free Metro newspaper on the bus to school, and take it into school with him. But when he went to High School, aged twelve, we were more or less forced by the school to acquire a Smartphone for him. That's when the reading, aside from on a screen stopped. He's still a great kid, currently sitting his GCSE's, and I'm sure he'll do well.,,But I so miss that little man catching up with news on the bus, or having to be told he needed to turn off the light and sleep: 'Five minutes daddy, I just want to finish this chapter...Our younger son, not technically a teenager at twelve, but one in attitude, also started to virtually live on his phone when he went to the Big School. OK, he was never a great reader anyway. He's more sporty, spending two years doing MMA, up to Blue belt level, before switching to boxing, having his first competitive bout a few weeks ago...But I digress: Why haven't I bought this book? It's the blurb. Social media is bad not just because it keeps children, and adults, scrolling mindlessly on their devices, it's also because this, allegedly, leads people to make unwise political choices, such as voting for Trump or Bolsonaro. No doubt he would add voting for Boris Johnson and Brexit here in the UK This contempt for the average working class person, the idea that nobody could rationally vote this way, exposes the author a typically socially liberal Guardian, BBC journalist type, who wishes to keep political discourse within very limited parameters of centre-left to centre right. In addition, he throws on covid 'Conspiracy Theories' for good measure. This badly dates the book, despite it being published less than a-year-and-half ago. This is because most of that conspiratorial analysis' of the 'pandemic' has now been shown to be fact. I won't go into that further here. As I've already said, a smug self-satisfied attitude to 'my' people, working class people, puts me off purchasing the book, even though I'm sure it's strong on the facts, the statistics of the matter, aside from when we get to covid and excess deaths. One last point, aren't most of the Big Shots in Big Tech' ultra-liberal types anyway, with the exception of good old Elon? Stolen Focus by Jonathan Hari maybe won't annoy me quite so much...

This isn't the first book written about the negative effects of social media on individuals and society, but it's one of the most important. For a start the author's sources are as unimpeachable as you're likely to find. They include the likes of former Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Google and Facebook engineers, and people who held leadership positions for these and other companies. The things you learn come directly from the people who enabled and created the very algorithms which are at the root of the problems we face (rampant promoting of misinformation and divisive content, encouraging anger and outrage, etc.)You learn not just what the algorithms do but why they were set up that way. That in the end, Facebook, Google, Twitter and others make their money by blindly assuming that algorithms which train users to spend more and more time on their platforms, is not only good for their bottom line, but good for users. This despite strong evidence that — by design — their systems tap into human addiction mechanisms and psychology, in ways that make us more and more unhappy, the further down the rabbit hole we go. Perhaps most astonishing is the fact that the algorithms have become so automated, that if you ask Facebook and Google today how it works, they will flat out tell you that they don't know. While this may give them some feeling of plausible deniability it does nothing to diminish their responsibility for the harmful impacts of their technology.Equally important as the sourcing and detailed reporting, the author's writing style is quite approachable. So even if you're not technically inclined, you won't get left behind. He does not rely on a lot of technical jargon or concepts to get his points across, which is important when targeting a broad audience.Highly recommended.(And hoping this book ends up in many collegiate classrooms where it can help inform tomorrow's engineers and CEOs.)

This is great journalism on an issue that is happening real time. The "engagement" algorithm that causes people to burn their neighbours' homes down is the same formula drawing the Republican party toward the far right. The big tech companies that are now locked in to the engagement algorithm for their financial livelihood are runaway trains. They are like the social equivalents of A-bombs now. The only "safe way" to use the engagement algorithm is not to use it.

Spannende Einblicke in die Entwicklungen und die Welt rund um Social Media.

Deep study of how social media mind influencing and wiring happens to human conscience, influencing actions and other outcomes triggering uncertainty to world order, orchestrating chaos and demonic use of algo explained with real life incidences, anecdotes and necessary churning points of history. This books offers comprehensive view of the subject and reduces the necessity of read any other book on similar /same object thereby making worthy time investment to study, perceive and analyse.

An outstanding, thoroughly researched book written in clear, direct language. Goes well beyond the superficial problems created by social media we are all aware of into the history and, above all, data, behind them, to paint an altogether terrifying picture of the dangers of this online world. Social media is responsible for drastically changing global mentalities and we all have a responsibility to understand this - thank you Mr. Fisher for enlightening us. We should all, we must all, read this book.