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Mister harris zooms to washington. Just a little over a year ago, tristan headed to congress to testify. And april 20, seventh of two thousand 21, he was back. This time it was actually with a similar cast of characters. Joan donovan, who was at the harvard shorenscenes tenner, focussing on studying on disinformation. i think tackling a problem this big will require federal oversight for the long term. We didn't build airports overnight. But te companies are flying the plane with nowhere to land at this point. The cost of doing nothing is nothing short of democracies.

Back in January 2020, Tristan Harris went to Washington, D.C. to testify before the U.S. Congress on the harms of social media. A few weeks ago, he returned — virtually — for another hearing, Algorithms and Amplification: How Social Media Platforms’ Design Choices Shape Our Discourse and Our Minds. He testified alongside Dr. Joan Donovan, Research Director at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media Politics and Public Policy and the heads of policy from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The senators’ animated questioning demonstrated a deeper understanding of how these companies’ fundamental business models and design properties fuel hate and misinformation, and many of the lawmakers expressed a desire and willingness to take regulatory action. But, there’s still room for a more focused conversation. “It’s not about whether they filter out bad content,” says Tristan, “but really whether the entire business model of capturing human performance is a good way to organize society.” In this episode, a follow-up to last year’s “Mr. Harris Goes to Washington,” Tristan and Aza Raskin debrief about what was different this time, and what work lies ahead to pave the way for effective policy.