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Social Warming: How Social Media Polarises Us All - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Social Warming: How Social Media Polarises Us All

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An impassioned exploration of the ways in which social media has manipulated us all

‘Witty, rigorous, and as urgent as a fire alarm’ Dorian Lynskey

‘Cooly prosecutorial’ Guardian

Nobody meant for this to happen.

Facebook didn’t mean to facilitate a genocide.

Twitter didn’t want to be used to harass women.

YouTube never planned to radicalise young men.

But with billions of users, these platforms need only tweak their algorithms to generate more ‘engagement’. In so doing, they bring unrest to previously settled communities and erode our relationships.

Social warming has happened gradually – as a by-product of our preposterously convenient digital existence. But the gradual deterioration of our attitudes and behaviour on- and offline – this vicious cycle of anger and outrage – is real. And it can be corrected. Here’s how.

ISBN-13: 9780861542291

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Oneworld Publications

Publication Date: 08-10-2021

Pages: 352

Product Dimensions: 5.75(w) x 8.85(h) x 1.20(d)

Charles Arthur is a journalist, author and speaker, writing on science and technology for over thirty years. He was technology editor of the Guardian from 2005–2014, and afterwards carried out research into social division at Cambridge University. He is the author of two specialist books, Digital Wars and Cyber Wars.

Table of Contents

1 Prologue: The Shape of the Problem 1

2 Early Days:The Promise and the Power 12

3 Amplification and Algorithms: The Watcher Beneath Your Screen 38

4 Outrage and Scissor Statements: Our Tribal Mindset 76

5 Worst-Case Scenario: How Facebook Sent Myanmar Haywire 112

6 Divided Vote: How Social Media Polarises Politics 151

7 Fact to Fake: How the Media Ecosystem Collapsed 186

8 Democracy at Risk: Why Social Media Undermines Elections 236

9 Pandemic: Inoculated Against Truth 268

10 Regulation: Cutting the Problem Down to Size 297

Acknowledgements 317

Notes 319