Vaidhyanathan, Siva

If you wanted to build a machine that would distribute propaganda to millions of people, distract them from important issues, energize hatred and bigotry, erode social trust, undermine respectable journalism, foster doubts about science, and engage in massive surveillance all at once, youwould make something a lot like Facebook. Of course, none of that was part of the plan. In this fully updated paperback edition of Antisocial Media, Siva Vaidhyanathan explains how Facebook devolved from an innocent social site hacked together by Harvard students into a force that, while it may makepersonal life just a little more pleasurable, makes democracy a lot more challenging. It's an account of the hubris of good intentions, a missionary spirit, and an ideology that sees computer code as the universal solvent for all human problems. And it's an indictment of how "social media" hasfostered the deterioration of democratic culture around the world, from facilitating Russian meddling in support of Trump's election to the exploitation of the platform by murderous authoritarians in Burma and the Philippines. Both authoritative and trenchant, Antisocial Media shows how Facebook'smission went so wrong.

"Surveys the key issues and controversies surrounding global intellectual property law and policy, considering the effects global standardization is having on both developed and developing nations and the relationships among them ... Vaidhyanathan helps clarify both the basic terms and the major conflicts surrounding the ... idea of intellectual property"--Provided by publisher.

Describes historical and contemporary cultural examples of how the information age is changing the social and political future. The author argues that there are two sides of this age: Oligarchy and Anarchy.

Explores how the world has used and embraced Google since the creation of the Internet, reveals the growing resistance to its expansion, and raises red flags about issues of intellectual property and its relation to the Google Books project.