How Do We Get to a Publicly Interrupted Internet?

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I feel like we need a publicly interested and humane internet. I also think our tools could be better designed to serve us, whether it's browsers or phones. It is time for a new generation of tec tools that start from a very different place. By the p b s does it some a lot of millionaires with a lot of things they want to do with their lives to improve the earth. i just think it's like that is the next frontier. And i've been waiting and hoping, you know, i don't know who it could be. Could be company such as apple because they could start a low cost social network. Need more resources devoted to this cause - not just tech

An information system that relies on advertising was not born with the Internet. But social media platforms have taken it to an entirely new level, becoming a major force in how we make sense of ourselves and the world around us. Columbia law professor Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants and The Curse of Bigness, takes us through the birth of the eyeball-centric news model and ensuing boom of yellow journalism, to the backlash that rallied journalists and citizens around creating industry ethics and standards. Throughout the 20th century, radio, television, and even posters elicited excitement, hope, fear, skepticism and greed, and people worked together to create a patchwork of regulation and behavior that attempted to point those tools in the direction of good. The Internet has brought us to just such a crossroads again, but this time with global consequences that are truly life-and-death.