The Death of Truth
By Steven Brill
Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN: 978-0-525-65831-3
317pp.

The world continues to struggle to keep pace with sweeping technological changes that have been taking place at a breakneck speed, especially in the last 30 years. As if that were not dazzling enough, the internet is not only transforming the business world on a daily basis but has also altered the social, family and political landscape.

Within this technological leap, social media has evolved into a behemoth that is giving sleepless nights to governments and many common people, including its users. While the scope and pace of such monumental historical changes defy human grasp, some long-established areas of civilisation’s evolution are also being traumatised.

Journalism, initially through print and, later, radio and television, became a pillar of society and democracy worldwide, especially over the last couple of centuries. In the last quarter century, however, the print and electronic media are fast being encroached upon by internet-based websites and social media — albeit, with a crucial fundamental difference.

The conventional press and broadcast media operate through identifiable, recognised and accountable institutions and people, such as the editors and owners of the publications and channels, whereas social media operates often in anonymity. The internet made every individual in the world a potential journalist, reporter and columnist without the responsibility of owning up to and being liable for their expressions, which can range from unchecked hard facts to health hazards and metaphysical nonsense.

A well-researched book delves into the technological changes that are impacting the world’s socio-cultural landscape and what to do about the distortions of the public mind being caused by them

One of the vital and elusive offshoots of this modern technological phenomenon of social media that has transformed our lives is the billions of advertising dollars generated through a ‘mysterious’ computerised mechanism, wherein even the advertiser doesn’t always know where his message is being placed. He is not always aware whether his advertising budget is financing noble websites, or evil and hatred-creating unbridled platforms.

The placement of the advertisement is not decided directly by the advertiser, but by the rating assigned to a slot by algorithm-generated recommendation engines — a system of programmed instructions blindly executed that decides the rating of various advertising slots and their price.

The Death of Truth by Steven Brill, a well-researched book, offers a thorough analysis of the above-mentioned dynamics and the legal and technical aspects of the social media phenomenon and its impact, with examples from real life. It also details solutions to get a handle on social media. The author lives near New York and has authored three books and written for The New Yorker and other publications.

“After the printing press was invented in the 15th century, there were efforts to regulate who could have access to one,” writes Brill. “It was celebrated as a breakthrough in advancing learning and knowledge, but also seen as a powerful weapon if used by the wrong people. Ultimately, those hoping to control these new tools of mass communication were regarded, correctly, as fearing free speech and the free exchange of ideas that might shake their hold on power.

“Initially, the internet enjoyed the same reception. It was celebrated almost unanimously as a wonderfully liberating force. And it is. The internet allows anyone and everyone to be a publisher and to publish instantly to anyone in the world. That’s the good news.

“But it turns out that the bad news is also that the internet allows anyone and everyone to be a publisher to publish instantly to anyone in the world… Today’s media tools can be used not just to distort the truth for millions of people. They can also do it in a way that hides the damage from the rest of us, so that we cannot counter it effectively.”

According to Brill, the Section 230 Amendment to the Communication Act of 1934 in the US, passed in 1996, was the fundamental cause of online abuse eventually. “The brief text of the amendment focused on the idea that the platforms [such as Facebook and YouTube] should be free to be the Good Samaritans they wanted to be,” he points out. “It shielded them from being sued for posting harmful content that might slip through whatever screening they tried to do, or from being sued by someone aggrieved by any content they blocked through their Good Samaritan efforts.”

Although “most of the platforms have community standards” that prohibit, among other abuses, initiating violence, inauthentic behaviour — including setting coordinated accounts or sending posts secretly generated by state-sponsored or political campaigns — promoting suicide or self-injury, bullying, hate speech, graphic or sexually explicit content and human exploitation, such prohibitions are not implemented strictly, because of the legal loophole mentioned above.

“This book has told the story of the four core forces that have combined to create the death of truth and trust and the ensuing instability and chaos,” explains Brill. “Two of these forces are related to technology. First, there are social media platforms … Second, there is the development and dominance of programmatic advertising technology that supports misinformation financially…

“The other two core forces have to do with people. First, there are the authoritarians, charlatans promoting bogus health cures and other phoney products, conspiracy theorists, and just plain deranged people who promote misinformation and disinformation. We can call them the bad actors. Second, there are the abused — those who for some reason feel left behind, threatened or otherwise distrustful and vulnerable enough to buy into what the bad actors are selling.”

After thoroughly delving into the legislative, technical, financial and social intricacies of the distortion of the public mind globally through the social media onslaught, in the last chapter of the book, titled ‘Resurrecting Truth — What We Can Do’, Brill offers a long list of ideas for reverse engineering the damage done by the combination of the four core forces mentioned. These ideas include: fixing the platforms to adhere to their commitments to users about the legitimacy of their content; to amend Section 230 — “slightly”; ending online anonymity; and energising online news and information literacy programmes.

The Death of Truth is a wide-ranging scrutiny of the social media phenomenon that can help policymakers, institutions and people keep pace with the rapid change and impact of social media.

The reviewer is a freelance writer and translator.

He can be reached at mehwer@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 29th, 2024