The number one thing that has to happen here is social networks need to fix their platforms. I actually would strongly encourage everyone to throw their phones into a river. There's the slippery slope of doing nothing and letting the most powerful social communication tools in history become garbage fires of bigotry. And we're getting to a slightly dangerous place where people who take one seriously have a hard time taking the other seriously.
The internet can be a wonderful, but also a terribly unpleasant place. Andrew Marantz knows this well. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker who spent three years embedded in the world of internet trolls to understand how regular people propel fringe talking points into the heart of online conversations. In this episode, he shares how ideas spread on the internet – and what we can do to make our digital experiences less about doom-scrolling, and more about real human connection. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts