2. Blitzscaling

The tech pioneers were right: all this connectivity and sharing is creating a new age of freedom and democracy. A global consciousness. Arab Spring, Barack Obama – both fuelled by social media - make the possibilities feel limitless.But, just as the dream to connect everyone is b ...  Show more

2016 is a big election year. But something is going very wrong online. Journalists in America and the Philippines start to notice something strange going on online. In Manila, Maria Ressa - the editor of online news site, Rappler - discovers a sock puppet network of social media ...  Show more

Our lives are increasingly moving from the offline to the online world, leaving a long trail of data in our wake. These data can be used to wield economic and political power, and to define us as communities and as individuals. What are the opportunities and risks?

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The internet was supposed to set us free. But somewhere along the way, it became a tool for surveillance, extraction, and control. What happened? And is there still time to reclaim the weird, untapped potential of the digital world? This week, Sean is joined by Douglas Rushkoff. ...  Show more

Meta - the owner of Facebook - has launched Threads, a text-based social media app. Tech Life's correspondent in San Francisco tells us about the launch. And we look at the development of social media with Brooke Erin Duffy, an associate professor in the Department of Communicati ...  Show more

What if the polarizing mess of social media, clickbait headlines and addictive algorithms isn't a breakdown of media but a transition to something better? Substack cofounder Hamish McKenzie explores how independent creators are growing a new media "garden," where trust beats enga ...  Show more