Well, Zuckerberg might well defend his multi-billion dollar child, but it looks like his employees are doing their own soul searching..."Renegade Facebook Employees Form Task Force To Battle Fake News - BuzzFeed News: The group is hoping to challenge the position by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the platform has no responsibility to address the issue following the election of Donald Trump."
The New York Times also wrote a piece on how Facebook, in Cross Hairs After Election, Is Said to Question Its Influence. Others credit Twitter with bringing Trump to power - Benioff still clearly wants to buy it, if it wasn't for his pesky investors.
Now, it's clear already that social media has escalated the ability for us to antagonize each other, to the same degree that it has also enabled us to entertain each other. But I am not sure the tool throws the election.
There is something deeper though about the level of discourse to which we have subjected ourselves, without an equal and opposite reaction to look for deeper and more reflective analysis, empathy and understanding.
It seems a good assumption to make that Trump in power will rapidly fall in line with Trump on the campaign. And I do not point out Trump alone - many politicians and media outlets have enjoyed the clicks and votes of post truth politics over the last several years. Ironically, voting for Trump is a reaction against one untruth for another.
Art of the lie | The Economist: "...post-truth politics is more than just an invention of whingeing elites who have been outflanked. The term picks out the heart of what is new: that truth is not falsified, or contested, but of secondary importance. Once, the purpose of political lying was to create a false view of the world. The lies of men like Mr Trump do not work like that. They are not intended to convince the elites, whom their target voters neither trust nor like, but to reinforce prejudices."
How does truth, knowledge and expertise win back the support of the majority? That will be a critical question in the months and years to come.
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