Stephen Fry is right: Social media moguls have polluted our culture

I will use culture here in the broadest, most global sense of the term. Stephen Fry is right about how toxic social media have turned out to be, after initial optimism:

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and X owner Elon Musk are "the worst polluters in human history", Stephen Fry has said.

The actor and comedian made the claim during a lecture at Kings College, London.

"You and your children cannot breathe the air or swim in the waters of our culture without breathing in the toxic particulates and stinking effluvia that belch and pour unchecked from their companies into the currents of our world," he said of the pair.

[...]

He said he was at first enthusiastic about the potential of social media to unite people around the world and bring about positive change in society, citing the Arab Spring protests which were coordinated online as an example – but added that he had been proved wrong.

He described what he considered to be a fatal flaw in attempts by early Facebook algorithms to “maximise engagement”, saying nobody had predicted that engagement would be “most maximised by... the worst passions" such as anger, shock and horror.

It all went horribly wrong, didn't it. I was very excited about the possibilities the first web browser offered in the mid-1990s. I've probably been a bit of an early adopter much of what the brave new digital world has had to offer, at least until recently. I learned enough code to design my first web page in 1995, had a MySpace profile for most of the aughts, and had my Facebook account set up during the era when one still needed an invite and it was focused primarily on those who attended college (and maybe a few of us on faculty and staff). Saw some possibilities for organizing social movements, increasing communication and understanding, and the possibilities for a more hopeful future. Instead, what gets amplified is vitriol, hate, and disinformation. Most of what we experience on social media platforms is the written and video equivalent of a sewer. And as someone who has been decreasing my own presence on any of these platforms on might mention, I am deeply concerned that the stench will not wash off. And the folks making massive profits are fine with that. The moguls Fry named deserve to be held accountable for the havoc they have brought us. It's great that Telegram's CEO is at least finally facing some consequences for the filth he has allowed on his hybrid social media and messaging platform. But that's only a start.

Fry is similarly pessimistic about the role artificial intelligence will play in disrupting our culture, and I agree. AI is already being misused and abused, and it will only get worse absent coordinated global regulation of its development and use.

I will give Stephen Fry the last word:

“The best I can do is this – Einstein and Russell said in their manifesto on nuclear weapons – we appeal as human beings to human beings, remember your humanity and forget the rest,” he said.