Antisocial Media with Andrew Marantz

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

MS NOW, Chris Hayes

News, Versant Media, Versant, Ms Now, Nbcnews, Why Is This Happening?, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Chris Hayes, Politics, Government, Society & Culture, Msnbc, Withpod

4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2019

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Andrew Marantz spent three years embedded in some of the ugliest corners of the Internet. His goal: find out how trolls and alt-right propagandists were able to so effectively turn social media platforms into a vehicle for taking their fringe opinions into the mainstream. Unable to talk to the gate keepers of the Internet, Marantz went to the gate crashers. What he found is a clear guide to a sort of underground information economy that has a reach every bit as far as the mainstream media. This conversation breaks down the key factors that make up this toxic part of the current information environment, helping to better understand the political moment we’re in. RELATED READING: Antisocial by Andrew Marantz The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism by Andrew Marantz YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Blocking Big Tech with Kashmir Hill (February 19) Who Broke the Internet? with Tim Wu (May 29, 2018) The Information Crisis with David Roberts (Dec 4, 2018) Find out more about the Texas Tribune Festival

Transcript

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0:00.0	Where does this go?
0:01.5	Like more people are going to be swapped up in this,
0:03.3	and the country's politics will get more berserk,
0:05.8	more bigoted, more anti-social to quote the book's title,
0:09.8	more insane, more vile, more ugly, more debased.
0:14.6	Is that the argument of the book?
0:16.3	Things are pointing in that direction now,
0:17.9	but it is within our power to change it.
0:20.1	So that doesn't mean that you have to land on pessimism or optimism.
0:23.3	It means you have to land on holy shit we have a lot of work to do.
0:30.0	Hello and welcome to Why is this happening with me, your host, Chris Hayes.
0:33.8	So I'm speaking to you today in the midst of this Ukraine story,
0:37.2	which is blowing up.
0:38.4	The short version of the President of the United States used his form of power as the president
0:42.6	to directly blackmail, extort, solicit, or bribe from the President of Ukraine
0:49.0	by essentially threatening whether explicitly or implicitly to hold back $250 million USA,
0:55.4	unless the President opened investigation into his chief rival's son,
1:01.2	which is just like impossibly and flatly corrupt,
1:04.3	and abuse of power on its face where they've impeachment in my humble opinion.
1:09.0	That said, within like seconds of the news breaking or minutes,
1:13.6	there's all these folks on Twitter, some of them maybe automate about some of them,
1:16.3	real people who are just trolls, like spinning wildly about how corrupt Biden is,
	...

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