In the Public Square: Social media and other catastrophes

What’s really going on in the Persian Gulf? Our answers will likely vary, depending on which information sources we rely on. Is it really possible for Donald Trump to simply declare victory and get out? I think the answer is yes, because the fragmented information ecosystem we all live in today allows a particular audience to “see” victory where they are told to see it.

But in that same system, fragmented audiences can also “see” and accept different reasons for harsher measures, the violation of civil liberties and human rights, increased authoritarianism. By that measure, are we well and truly “Zucked”?

In this episode of In the Public Square, Rappler columnist John Nery is joined by Roger McNamee, who is the author of the bestselling book “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe.”

Roger McNamee is, to quote the title of his profile in The New Yorker magazine, “Big Tech’s Big Defector.” A mentor to Mark Zuckerberg in the early days of Facebook, and himself one of the company’s early investors, McNamee has become one of the leading critics not only of Facebook but of Silicon Valley.

Watch the episode on Wednesday, March 25, at 8 pm.-Rappler.com