The Greatest Propaganda Machine in History.

by

       George Sontag

      The Silicon Six—all billionaires, all Americans—who care more about boosting their share price than about protecting democracy now decide everything you see and read on social media. Who are these six people who decide what information so much of the world sees? They are: Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, Sundar Pichai at Google, at its parent company Alphabet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Brin’s ex-sister-in-law, Susan Wojcicki at YouTube and Jack Dorsey at Twitter. These six decide the world of what is right and what is wrong.

      This is ideological imperialism—six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley imposing their vision on the rest of the world, unaccountable to any government and acting like they’re above the reach of law. They have become the greatest propaganda machine in history. It’s why fake news outperforms real news, because studies show that lies spread faster than truth.

 

      On the internet, everything can appear equally legitimate and the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner. Demagogues appeal to our worst instincts and conspiracy theories once confined to the fringe, are going mainstream. It’s as if the Age of Reason—the era of evidential argument is ending, knowledge is delegitimized, and scientific consensus is dismissed. Democracy, which depends on shared truths, is in retreat, and autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is on the march. Hate crimes are surging, as are murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.

      What do all these dangerous trends have in common? The one thing is pretty clear. All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history. Think about it. Facebook, YouTube and Google, Twitter and others—they reach billions of people. The algorithms these platforms depend on deliberately amplify the type of content that keeps users engaged—stories that appeal to our baser instincts and that trigger outrage and fear. 

 

      Thanks to social media conspiracies take hold. It’s easier for hate groups to recruit, easier for foreign intelligence agencies to interfere in our elections. It’s actually quite shocking how easy it is to turn conspiracy thinking into violence. Voltaire was right, “those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” And social media lets authoritarians push absurdities to billions of people. I believe it’s time for a fundamental rethink of social media and how it spreads hate, conspiracies and lies. At this very moment, there are still Holocaust deniers on Facebook, and Google still takes you to the most repulsive Holocaust denial sites with a simple click.

      Last fall Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook delivered a speech that warned against new laws and regulations on companies like his. Well, some of these arguments are simply absurd. Zuckerberg tried to portray this whole issue as “choices…around free expression.” That is ludicrous considering that his company strictly limits one side of the political spectrum and amplifies the other. He claimed that new standard limits on what’s posted on social media would be to “pull back on free expression.” This is utter nonsense since now his directives are deciding who stays and who does not. The First Amendment does say that “Congress shall make no law” abridging freedom of speech, however, this does not apply to private businesses like Facebook. We’re not asking these companies to determine the boundaries of free speech across society. We just want them to be fair and balanced on their platforms.

      Still, Zuckerberg says that “people should decide what is credible, not tech companies.” But at a time when two-thirds of millennials say they haven’t even heard of Auschwitz, due to our governments dumbing down of our educational system especially when it comes to history, how are they supposed to know what’s “credible?” How are they supposed to know that the lie is a lie?

      The truth is these are the richest companies in the world and these companies won’t fundamentally change because their entire business model relies on generating more engagement, and nothing generates more engagement than lies, fear, and outrage. The shooter who massacred Muslims in New Zealand live streamed his atrocity on Facebook where it then spread across the internet and was viewed likely millions of times. It was a snuff film, brought to you by social media.

Finally, Zuckerberg said that social media companies should “live up to their responsibilities,” but Facebook will run any “political” ad you want, even if it’s a lie. And they’ll even help you micro-target those lies to their users for maximum effect. This cannot possibly be what the creators of the internet had in mind?

       Social media companies know they are largely protected from liability for the content their users post—no matter how indecent it is—by Section 230 of, get ready for it, the Communications Decency Act. As with the Industrial Revolution, it’s past time for regulation and legislation to curb the greed of these high-tech robber barons. There is such a thing as objective truth. Facts do exist. If these internet companies really want to make a difference, they should hire enough monitors to actually monitor and monitor fairly, insist on facts and purge these lies and conspiracies from their platforms. They have already allowed one foreign power to interfere in our elections. They must not be allowed to do it again. If we make that our aim—if we prioritize truth over lies, tolerance over prejudice, empathy over indifference and experts over idiots—then maybe, just maybe, we can stop the greatest propaganda machine in history.