{"product_id":"the-chaos-machine-the-inside-story-of-how-social-media-rewired-our-minds-and-our-world-9780316703321","title":"The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003einvestigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist, \"an essential book for our times\" (Ezra Klein), tracking the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech's breakneck race to drive engagement--and profits--at all costs fractured the world\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e We all have a vague sense that social media is bad for our minds, for our children, and for our democracies. But the truth is that its reach and impact run far deeper than we have understood. Building on years of international reporting, Max Fisher tells the gripping and galling inside story of how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks, in their pursuit of unfettered profits, preyed on psychological frailties to create the algorithms that drive everyday users to extreme opinions and, increasingly, extreme actions. As Fisher demonstrates, the companies' founding tenets, combined with a blinkered focus maximizing engagement, have led to a destabilized world for everyone. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Traversing the planet, Fisher tracks the ills--the ubiquity of hate speech, the spillover into violence--that first festered in far-off locales to their dark culmination in America during the pandemic, the 2020 election, and the Capitol Insurrection. Through it all, the social-media giants refused to intervene in any meaningful way, claiming to champion free speech when in fact what they most prized were limitless profits. The result, as Fisher shows, is a cultural shift toward a world in which people are polarized not by beliefs based on facts, but by misinformation, outrage, and fear. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e His narrative is about more than the villains, however. Fisher also weaves together the stories of the heroic outsiders and Silicon Valley defectors who raised the alarm and revealed what was happening behind the closed doors of Big Tech. Both panoramic and intimate, \u003ci\u003eThe Chaos Machine \u003c\/i\u003eis the definitive account of the meteoric rise and troubled legacy of the tech titans, as well as a rousing and hopeful call to arrest the havoc wreaked on our minds and our world before it's too late. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Little Brown and Company\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/06\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780316703321\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 400\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal Prepub Alert\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/01\/2022 pg. 18\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 05\/23\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/01\/2022 pg. 82\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/15\/2022\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Max Fisher","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42277318099125,"sku":"9780316703321","price":27.63,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_7d32bbe4-e8a6-43d9-aa51-2075e52f3205.jpg?v=1657597414","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-chaos-machine-the-inside-story-of-how-social-media-rewired-our-minds-and-our-world-9780316703321","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}