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The Chaos Machine

The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

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About this listen

How social media is hacking our minds, our societies and the world—and what we can do about it.

The Chaos Machine is the story of how the world was driven mad by social media. The election of populists like Trump and Bolsonaro; strife and genocide in countries like Myanmar, the rampant spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories as deadly as the pandemic itself, all of these are products of a breakdown in our social and political lives, a breakdown driven by the apps, companies and algorithms that compete constantly for our attention.

Max Fisher is a leading New York Times technology reporter whose work has covered the way that social media sites—driven increasingly by artificial intelligence rather than human ingenuity—push users towards more and more extreme positions, deepening the divisions in society in pursuit of greater engagement and profit. With extraordinary access to the most powerful players in Silicon Valley, and with testimonies from around the world of the havoc being wreaked by our online selves, The Chaos Machine shows us how we got to this uniquely perilous moment—and how we might get out of it.

©2022 Max Fisher (P)2022 Hachette Audio Content Creation & Social Media Media Studies Social Media Social Sciences Technology Silicon Valley
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This is the most fascinating insight into the evils of social media that I could ever come across.
It’s made me rethink my entire relationship with the internet.

Disturbing, depressing and brilliant.

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Everything in here is both unsurprising and utterly shocking. A version of this story should be on every high school syllabus.

Please Read

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I've realized how misused the social media are and why I see so many radicalised people there.

Eye-opening work to make our future better

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Having heard Max Fisher on podcasts, it's a pity he didn't narrate here. Too important a story to be let down by such a picky point.

Narration takes away from story

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I listened on x1.3 speed as I couldn’t bear the narrator. This hampered my enjoyment a little bit it was absolutely fascinating and a terrifying insight into the power of Facebook and Google.

Fascinating and scary let down by dull, slow narration.

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