Invisible Rulers
The People Who Turn Lies into Reality
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
An “essential and riveting” (Jonathan Haidt) account of the small communities of propagandists revolutionizing politics, culture, and society
Invisible Rulers is about a profound transformation in power and influence that is altering our politics, our local government, and even our relationships with friends and neighbors. Today, small communities of propagandists increasingly shape public opinion and even control our relationship to the truth. Our shared reality has splintered into discrete bespoke realities driven by algorithms, influencers, and curated content. Very little can bridge the divide, thereby making democratic consensus nearly impossible to achieve. Renée DiResta exposes how these propagandists and their followers undermine the institutions that make society work, from anti-vaccine zealots who flood social media with fringe viewpoints to influencers who use AI-generated images to manipulate our perception of reality. She also provides readers with a new conception of civics that helps us understand and fight back against these new invisible rulers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The viral nature of social media has made right-wing influencers the "invisible rulers" of public discourse, according to this fiery debut investigation. DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), starts with an insightful account of how social media's mechanics promote sensationalism, with charismatic personalities tailoring their output toward stimulating content, which gets boosted by algorithms designed to maximize engagement. The result, she contends, is a crisis of social consensus as users get isolated in delusional ideological bubbles. DiResta applies this framework to several social media controversies and campaigns, especially Trump supporters' 2020 election denialism and Covid-19 vaccine conspiracies. She also rebuts right-wing critics of social media platforms, arguing that their complaints of being censored are overblown and mainly an attempt to "work the refs." She particularly takes to task Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi, who in reporting and congressional testimony accused her and SIO of pressuring Twitter (now X) to censor millions of tweets; she calls these allegations "lies." Her small-bore recommendations—disclosure requirements for paid political speech by influencers and tweaking algorithms to boost civility over vitriol—do indeed fall short of censorship, though her call for "freedom of speech, not freedom of reach" will likely still come off as shadow-banning to her accusers. Nevertheless, it's a well-informed take on what ails social media, and a vigorous riposte to conservative narratives of persecution by Big Tech.
