The Human Cost of Not Being Moderated Properly

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The atomization of news means that everything you see in your news seat, on facebook or on twitter is something truly horrific. And because they're all mixed together, like our brains just can't handle it, and they just w cims normalise o, shout it down. So what's the cost of this not being moderated appropriately? Let me first pull out makrol and then go to micro we've now elected leaders who, in many different parts of the world where cheap armies on social media have pushed back democracy. A person cannot stand up against an onslaught of information operations. It's a symmetrical warfare.

[This episode originally aired on November 5, 2019] Maria Ressa is arguably one of the bravest journalists working in the Philippines today. As co-founder and CEO of the media site Rappler, she has withstood death threats, multiple arrests and a rising tide of populist fury that she first saw on Facebook, in the form of a strange and jarring personal attack. Through her story, she reveals, play by play, how an aspiring strongman can use social media to spread falsehoods, sow confusion, intimidate critics and subvert democratic institutions. Nonetheless, she argues Silicon Valley can reverse these trends, and fast. First, tech companies must "wake up," she says, to the threats they've unleashed throughout the Global South. Second, they must recognize that social media is intrinsically designed to favor the strongman over the lone dissident and the propagandist over the truth-teller, which is why it has become the central tool in every aspiring dictator's playbook.