Antisocial media : how facebook disconnects US and undermines democracy

289 Pages·2018·1.27 MB·English

by  Vaidhyanathan

ANTISOCIAL MEDIA

SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN
A N T I S O C I A L
M E D I A
How Facebook Disconnects Us
and Undermines Democracy
1
1
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© Siva Vaidhyanathan 2018
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To my parents

Some claim the world is gradually becoming united, that it will grow into
a  brotherly community as distances shrink and ideas are transmitted
through the air. Alas, you must not believe that men can be united in this
way. To consider freedom as directly dependent on the number of man’s
requirements and the extent of their immediate satisfaction shows a twisted
understanding of human nature, for such an interpretation only breeds in
men a multitude of senseless, stupid desires and habits and endless
preposterous inventions. People are more and more moved by envy now,
by the desire to satisfy their material greed, and by vanity.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

CONTENTS
Introduction: The Problem with Facebook Is Facebook 1
1 The Pleasure Machine 31
2 The Surveillance Machine 52
3 The Attention Machine 77
4 The Benevolence Machine 106
5 The Protest Machine 128
6 The Politics Machine 146
7 The Disinformation Machine 175
Conclusion: The Nonsense Machine 196
Acknowledgments 221
Notes 229
Index 267