"By revealing the machinery and dynamics of the interplay between influencers, algorithms, and online crowds, DiResta illustrates the way propagandists deliberately undermine belief in the fundamental legitimacy of institutions that make society work. These invisible rulers create bespoke realities to revolutionize politics, culture, and society. Their work is driven by a simple maxim: if you make it trend, you make it true. DiResta predicts the consequences...

"Once, it was conventional wisdom to assume that digital technologies would enable greater access to information, facilitate collective organizing, and empower civil society. Rather than facilitating unity and the emergence of a common ideology based on science, the internet and social media have proven to be vehicles used to spread falsehoods, pollute the public sphere, and subject populations to wholesale surveillance. People are also spending an...

In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, "Martin Gurri saw it coming." Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age--government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary...

"This is a book about how global movements build power with Internet memes"--

"For years, we were promised the Internet would make our politics more open and inclusive. And its influence has certainly been decisive: the 2016 election was debated, won, and lost on social media and the Internet. But with Facebook and Twitter embroiled in controversy over privacy issues, ongoing revelations about foreign interference through hacking and social media trolls, and coverage of controversial viral videos monopolizing the attention...

"This tour de force of investigative journalism--in the vein of The Next Civil War and Why We're Polarized--depicts the United States of America as a country at a crossroads with the battle between the right and left spilling out from the darkest corners of the internet into the real world with often tragic consequences. Award-winning journalist and CNN correspondent Elle Reeve was not surprised by the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021....

"In February of 2013, Richard Stengel, the former editor-in-chief of Time, joined the Obama administration as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Within days, two shocking events made world-wide headlines: ISIS executed American journalist James Foley on a graphic video seen by tens of millions, and Vladimir Putin's "little green men"--Russian special forces--invaded Crimea, amid a blizzard of Russian denials and false...

"What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self--a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience--she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent...

"For as long as historical records have existed, people in positions of authority have tried to rewrite history to suit their purposes. The pattern has become tragically familiar: dictatorial powers use their editing pens to create myths, spread propaganda, justify decisions, erase opponents, and even dispose of crimes. Today, as Republican politics becomes increasingly radicalized, it's not surprising to see the party read from a similarly despotic...

"The promise of Facebook was to create a more open and connected world. But from the company's failure to protect millions of users' data, to the proliferation of "fake news" and disinformation in the U.S. and across the world, mounting crises have raised the question: How has Facebook's historic success as a social network brought about real-world harm? Drawing on dozens of original interviews and rare footage, this major, two-night television event...