“Fake News and Facebook: Distrust in the Media” -- World Affairs Council
2:00 a.m. Tuesday morning 4/3/18. SF Bay Area, FM 88.5. Audio streaming on KQED-FM available, I believe.
-- Here is the blurb from World Affairs Council’s broadcast with Roger McNamee (formerly an early Mark Zuckerberg mentor), a tech investor who’s done quite well:
“With so many forces undermining democratic institutions worldwide, we wanted a chance to take a step back and provide some perspective. Russian interference in elections here and in Europe, the rise in fake news and a decline in citizen trust worldwide pose a danger. In this second of a three part series, we look at the role of social media and the ways in which it was exploited for the purpose of sowing distrust. Janine Zacharia, former Jerusalem bureau chief and Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post, and Roger McNamee, managing director at Elevation Partners and an early stage investor in Google and Facebook, are in conversation with World Affairs CEO Jane Wales.”
McNamee explains — for the first time that I could understand — the addiction millions have to Facebook, the “crazy” that people seem to get after digesting Facebook’s INTENTIONALLY divisive information, the Russian bot angle and influence and the entire thread of activity that threw the election of 2016, and TONS of other Facebook habits and aspects that have made it a deadly lure to much bad information followed by 2.1 billion people. I was transfixed by McNamee's thorough and knowledgeable explanation with plenty of detail. It is well worth listening to, especially for anyone overwhelmed (raising my hand) at all the data flying around regarding Trump’s now believed (by me) to be illegitimate winning of the White House, especially if it is revealed he helped Russia screw with Facebook.
Here are links to some print articles that also explain McNamee’s insights and policies (this guy knows his shit).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-mentored-mark-zuckerberg-heres-my-road-map-for-fixing-facebook/2018/01/14/0f976dea-f71b-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_story.html?utm_term=.64216bc60aab
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january-february-march-2018/how-to-fix-facebook-before-it-fixes-us/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/19/facebook-data-cambridge-analytica-privacy-breach