One of the most popular cures for an ailing computer or Hollywood movie franchise is often a reboot. Could this also prove a remedy for fixing toxic social media?
A rethink is what the Institute for Rebooting Social Media proposes to do over the next three years. The institute, a new initiative of Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, is being funded with $2m (1.5m) from the John S. and John L. Knight Foundation, as well as Craig Newmark Philanthropies.
"While the identification of problems may vary, it's hard to find anyone defending the current environment of social media," says Berkman co-founder Jonathan Zittrain.
"It's important to better assess, and make known, how social media is evolving, to appreciate the choices that are available for how it might be configured, and to canvass new and interesting emerging platforms apart from the shadow of the incumbents," he explains.
According to the Berkman Center, social media is broken. They say that platforms initially perceived as engines for democracy and truth-telling, appear to have facilitated the spread and acceptance of lies, division, and physical harm.
Recently, for example, social media was used to fuel the use of ivermectin - a drug used to de-worm livestock and which the FDA warns can be very dangerous to humans - as a Covid-19 treatment.
The Berkman Center research suggests social media has contributed to the decay in confidence in institutions, elections, and collective truth...
Read Full Story: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58498859
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.