The Death of Truth How Social Media and the Internet Gave Snake Oil Salesmen and Demagogues the Weapons They Needed to Destroy Trust and Polarize the World - And What We Can Do About It

A best-selling author documents how facts-shared truths-have lost their power to hold us together as a community, as a country, globally, and how belief in "alternative facts" and conspiracy theories have destroyed trust in institutions, leaders, and legitimate experts. Drawing on the front-row seat he has had as the co-founder of a company that uses journalists to track online misinformation, Steven Brill takes us inside the decisions made by executives in Silicon Valley to code the algorithms embedded in their social media platforms to maximize profits by pushing divisive content. He unravels the ingenious creation of automated advertising buying systems that reward that eye-attracting content, and describes the exploitation of that ad-driven machinery by politicians, hucksters, and conspiracy theorists. He also explains how the most powerful adversaries of America have used these American-made social media and advertising tools against us with massive disinformation campaigns. Brill explains how with the development of generative artificial intelligence everything could get exponentially worse-unless we act. Apropos, in The Death of Truth, he offers thoughtful, provocative but realistic prescriptions for how we can act and reverse course-proposals that are certain to stir debate, and even action. Finally, Brill chillingly recounts how his company's role in exposing Russian disinformation operations resulted in a Russian agent targeting him and his family.