2021-01-23NewScientist

24 | New Scientist | 23 January 2021

M

ANY of us here in the US

can’t decide which is

more momentous:

President Trump being impeached

for a second time, or President

Trump being kicked off Twitter,

Facebook and YouTube. Truly,

he was the first social media

president. Now we have to

decide what it means to have

tech companies take his online

podium away.

Like previous Republican

presidents Ronald Reagan and

George W. Bush, Donald Trump

has always hated the mainstream

media. Unlike his predecessors,

though, he had an alternative

platform to make himself heard.

Trump’s tweets kicked up daily

news doom spirals, and earned

him the kind of hardcore fans

that Beyoncé can only dream of.

Social media gave Trump

a broad platform, but perhaps

more importantly it offered a

set of narrower, more targeted

ones too. Facebook’s targeted

advertising system enabled

Trump’s team to aim extremist

content at his core audience, while

aiming more palatable stuff at

centrist voters. He could be one

candidate for white supremacists

who wanted to build a wall, and

quite another for unemployed

labourers who wanted the

coal mines back open.

Put in the language of

Silicon Valley, Trump was

able to trumpet in real time,

at scale, using mobile apps.

As we watched live feeds of

insurrectionists storming our

Capitol building on 6 January,

it became clear that incitement

to deadly violence isn’t just

rhetoric or “free speech”. Under

certain circumstances, it can

lead to murder and sedition.

The most awful part is that

Trump’s presidency was in some

ways a boost for Silicon Valley.

Twitter’s business model, if one

can call it that, is to reel in new

users with its roster of chatty

celebrity accounts. What

could be a bigger draw than

the ultimate celebrity, the

president himself? Meanwhile,

for Facebook, Trump’s election

win in 2016 cemented its status

as a soapbox for the world’s

political leaders, key to winning

hearts and minds.

Social media algorithms,

optimised for “engagement”,

amplified Trump and his

followers’ most extreme

rhetoric, spotlighting

conspiracy groups like QAnon

and the far-right neo-fascist

Proud Boys. Targeted content

fomented divisiveness, ushering

in the age of “alternate facts”.

Once the pandemic was

under way, it became especially

obvious that fake news wasn’t

just annoying, it could kill

people. Speech wasn’t free;

it was weaponised.

A few days before Trump’s

mob stormed the Capitol Building

in Washington DC, a group of

Alphabet employees – which

include Google and YouTube

workers – announced that they

had formed a union. Among other

motivations, the union wants

to make it safe for employees

to speak up about any unethical

behaviour or discrimination.

This is after AI engineer Timnit

Gebru said she was fired from

Google after co-authoring a

paper about racial bias in the

algorithms Google uses for some

of its products. Google denies

this allegation. Tech workers at

other big companies are watching

the Alphabet union closely, and

could well follow its lead.

Facing internal pressure from

workers, and external pressure

from the general public, Silicon

Valley’s social media giants

finally banned Trump. Because

they are privately owned

companies, they didn’t need

any reason to do it – they are

exempt from the nation’s free

speech provisions, as are all non-

governmental entities in the US.

These companies could have

closed Trump’s account at any

time, for any reason. But they

waited until after an armed

insurrection at the Capitol to

ban Trump for violating policies

against inciting violence – despite

years of similar rhetoric.

As we stand in the teetering

tower of our democracy, it is clear

that the time has come for Silicon

Valley companies to acknowledge

that they are key to our political

process. They aren’t neutral

platforms on which everyone’s

words peacefully coexist. Social

media is political media. The

question is, how do we as a nation

respond to what we have learned?

The public can demand that

policy-makers regulate tech

companies through an agency

like the Federal Communications

Commission, which controls

political ads on TV, among other

things. Workers can threaten

strikes when companies design

products that could heighten

social divisions and disseminate

lies. Hackers can engage in

direct action. In the coming

year, we are likely to see

movement on all of those fronts.

In the 2020s, the social media

industry will face its biggest

challenge: to slow down and

repair the things it has broken. ❚

This column appears

monthly. Up next week:

James Wong

“ Trump’s election

win in 2016

cemented Facebook’s

status as a soapbox

for winning hearts

and minds”

Trapped between an insurrection and a strike Silicon Valley

has enabled the US to get into a huge mess. It must start taking

responsibility for its political power, writes Annalee Newitz

This changes everything

What I’m reading

Witchmark by C. L. Polk,

an alternate first world

war history in which

a witch army doctor

discovers a magical

form of post-traumatic

stress disorder – and a

terrifying conspiracy.

What I’m watching

The new French

series Lupin, about a

gloriously competent

gentleman thief.

What I’m working on

Researching how the civil

war tore California apart.

Annalee’s week

Annalee Newitz is a science

journalist and author. Their

latest novel is The Future of

Another Timeline and they

are the co-host of the

Hugo-nominated podcast

Our Opinions Are Correct.

You can follow them

@annaleen and their website

is techsploitation.com

Views Columnist