(THREAD) Yesterday marked the 1 year anniversary of being on 60 Minutes w/ @andersoncooper to warn about “Brain Hacking”: how technology invisibly manipulates the thoughts, behaviors and feelings of minds and society.
It’s *unbelievable* how far things have come. At the time, it was *crazy* to think that in 1 year : Zuckerberg would be testifying before Congress, Facebook might be regulated, or Cambridge Analytica manipulation elections would be on front-page headlines around the world.
“These are neutral platforms,” everyone was told.
Today, I’m back in Vancouver for TED, where I gave a talk one year ago on how technology companies invisibly manipulate two billion people’s thoughts – a "control room" that's for sale to the highest bidder. ted.com/talks/tristan_…
.@Moonalice and I partnered up after TED last year to amplify massive public awareness on the topic: washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/janua…
People often mistook our concerns as about *addiction* (and thus always the excuse: “oh but we’re addicted to lots of things - tobacco, alcohol. This is nothing new.”)
But it was never about addiction. It was about how people's minds work.
But it was never about addiction. It was about how people's minds work.
People asked us: “How could you possibly get unstoppably powerful corporations and $billions in market cap to change their behavior, or get them to walk away from their business model? How could you possibly think they would change?”
But today, due to the insanely hard work of people who rarely get acknowledgment: staffers in Congress, ex-tech leaders/VCs who speak out,, investigative journalists, disinformation researchers like @d1gi, @jonathonmorgan, @noUpside - that conversation has changed
Two months ago, we launched the Center for Humane Technology (humanetech.com), bringing together many former insiders in the tech community to publicly say we need to design technology – including our business models – in a different, more humane, way.
Similarly, it might sound *crazy* to say that technology could ever be designed in a radically more humane way – that puts our *humanity* first. But it will happen.
Today @HumaneTech_ announced new set of advisors, including @StephenDeBerry, @RobertLustigMD, @MathBabeDotOrg, @Superwuster, @MarietjeSchaake, and also @ChrisHughes, 3rd co-founder of Facebook. humanetech.com/problem#team
Tomorrow Zuckerberg will testify before Congress. Now is the time to force a much-needed conversation about the "true cost of free" - the business model that incentivizes maximum collection of data, maximum influence/targeting for advertisers, and max threat to fabric of society.
And what it will take for us to migrate to "humane" systems - design, business models, and technology protocols - that, from the ground up, put human values and the strengthening the fabric of society first.
