Obama Knocks Social Media for 'Turbocharging' Disinformation
Former President Barack Obama today warned that for all its benefits, the internet and social media is "turbocharging some of humanity’s worst impulses," and flooding the zone with disinformation that threatens our democracy.
We’ve witnessed a “profound change in how we communicate and consume information,” Obama said during a speech at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center. “I am amazed by the internet,” he said, “but our brains aren’t accustomed to taking in this much information this fast.”
Tech and social media companies have a financial incentive to keep people online and engaged, and conflict sells, Obama said. But Silicon Valley is not solely to blame; “In fact some of the most outrageous content on the web comes from traditional media,” he argued. But social media has accelerated the decline of local media outlets, allowing less reputable charlatans to fill the void, from Steve Bannon to Vladimir Putin.
Over time, we lose our ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, Obama said. “Or maybe we just stop caring.”
Not helping the matter are members of Congress who “know better,” Obama said, pointing to GOP lies about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Obama is speaking out on this issue, in part, because of what he considers to be a personal “failure to fully appreciate [in 2016] just how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories, despite having spent years being a target of misinformation myself,” he said, a reference to the Birther conspiracy propagated by former President Donald Trump. “Putin didn’t do that. He didn’t have to. We did it to ourselves.”
And it can have deadly consequences, Obama said, pointing to those who died because they believed vaccine
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