01 May, 2024

Chuck Todd: The race to build a better internet — before it's too late

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/chuck-todd-race-build-better-internet-late-rcna149925

The authors believe many of the current ills in society can be traced to how the internet works. “Information is the lifeblood of any society, and our three-decade-old digital system for distributing it is fatally corrupt at its heart," they write. "It has failed to function as a trusted, neutral exchange of facts and ideas and has therefore catastrophically hindered our ability to gather respectfully to debate, to compromise and to hash out solutions. ... Everything, ultimately, comes down to our ability to communicate openly and truthfully with one another. We have lost that ability — thanks to how the internet has evolved away from its open, decentralized ideals.”

As it currently functions, the internet, they argue, “is the primary cause of a pervasive unease in the United States and other democratic societies. The internet explains why our national arguments seem intractable. It’s why every issue is reduced, in public debate, to the lowest common denominator.”

In some ways, like Paine’s "Common Sense," the book is an attempt to stoke revolution, this time against Big Tech instead of the English monarchy.