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Hijacking The American Conversation

A picture taken in Lille shows the logo of mobile app Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Messenger are displayed on a tablet.
DENIS CHARLET/AFP/Getty Images
A picture taken in Lille shows the logo of mobile app Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Messenger are displayed on a tablet.

Who directs the national conversation? And does the national conversation even exist anymore?

Enabled by the rise of social media, author Andrew Marantz argues that a certain kind of internet denizen, colloquially referred to as “edge lords,” has worked to destroy reasonable online discourse.

Marantz follows this group of “nihilists, right-wing nationalists, conspiracy purveyors, white supremacists and more” as they push right-wing memes and fake news on Facebook and attend the DeploraBall after the election of President Donald Trump.

Can the American public retake control of the internet from the trolls?

Produced by Haili Blassingame.

GUESTS

Andrew Marantz, Staff writer, The New Yorker; author of “Anti-Social: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation.” ; @andrewmarantz

For more, visit https://the1a.org.

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