Making Sense of Social Media and the Information Landscape | Episode 8 of The Essential Sam Harris

In this episode, we examine a series of Sam’s conversations
centered around social media’s impact on the information
landscape.


We begin with Sam’s second conversation with Tristan
Harris, which was conducted shortly after the release of
Tristan’s documentary, The Social Dilemma. The documentary lays
out Tristan’s thesis on how social media is causing the
deterioration of both individual and societal welfare. Author and
technologist Jaron Lanier follows, echoing
Tristan’s concerns and shifting the conversation to social
media’s unique business model, addressing how perverse incentives
reliably produce such detrimental outcomes.


We then hear from Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of
Twitter. Sam and Dorsey’s conversation took place when Dorsey was
still working at Twitter, and Sam still had an account. However,
the questions they pose—relating to issues of content moderation
and corporate transparency—are even more relevant today.


Next, psychologist Jonathan Haidt presents the
alarming findings from his research on the psychological effects
of social media, detailing how teenage girls are bearing the
brunt of a mental health crisis. 


Shifting to a more political lens, Sam and Cass
Sunstein discuss Sunstein’s book, #Republic, and
Sunstein addresses one of Sam’s most pressing fears of the last
seven years: how social media is warping our opinions on
politics. We then narrow down on this issue, with Zeynep
Tufekci explaining the real-life consequences of social
media’s influence on protest movements.


Finally, Sam and technology analyst Nina Schick
dive into one of the most urgent concerns of the AI boom:
deepfakes and how they might be weaponized to further pollute and
degrade our information landscape.


 


About the Series


Filmmaker Jay Shapiro has produced The Essential Sam
Harris, a new series of audio documentaries exploring
the major topics that Sam has focused on over the course of his
career.


Each episode weaves together original analysis, critical
perspective, and novel thought experiments with some of the most
compelling exchanges from the Making Sense archive. Whether you
are new to a particular topic, or think you have your mind made
up about it, we think you’ll find this series fascinating.