Amazon's Best History Book of the Month for July 2023 An invaluable guide to understanding how the internet has broken our brains—and what we can do to fix it. The original internet was not designed to make us upset, distracted, confused, and outraged. But something unexpected happened at the turn of the last decade, when a handful of small features were quietly launched at social media companies with little fanfare. Together, they triggered a cascading set of dramatic changes to how media, politics, and society itself operate—inadvertently creating an Outrage Machine we cannot ignore. Author, designer, and media researcher Tobias Rose-Stockwell shares the defining shifts caused by these technologies, and how they have ignited a society-wide crisis of trust. Drawing from cutting-edge research and vivid personal anecdotes, Rose-Stockwell illustrates how social media has bound us to an unprecedented system of public performance, training us to react rather than reflect, and attack rather than debate. Outrage Machine reveals the triggers and tactics used to exploit our anger, unpacking how these tools hack our deep tribal instincts and psychological vulnerabilities, and how they have become opportunistic platforms for authoritarians and a threat to democratic norms everywhere. But this book is not just about the problem. In a story spanning continents and generations, Rose-Stockwell explores how every new media technology disrupts our ability to make sense of the world, from the printing press to the telegraph, from radio to television. Outrage Machine situates social media within a historical cycle of confusion, violence, and emerging tolerance. Using clear language and powerful illustrations, this book reveals the magnitude of the challenges we face, while offering realistic solutions and a promising pathway out.

'The powerful new voice of her generation' The Times 'Funny, nuanced and wonderful' Jon Ronson 'A book that had me hollering, nodding and questioning at the same time' Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie ------- A candid exploration of the state of outrage in our culture, and how we can channel it back into the fights that matter, from presenter and DJ Ashley 'Dotty' Charles. In this wise and very funny journey into the outrage industry, Ashley 'Dotty' Charles explores how by shouting about everything, we have lost sight of the fights that actually matter - and created a world where our outrage feels with consequence. Here's how we can get it back on track. ------- 'Funny, educational, enlightening . . . Way ahead of its time' Chris Evans 'A smart and timely manifesto for surviving the age of rage' i 'Everyone with a social media account should read this book' Bella Mackie 'A swipe at the empty rhetoric of activism' Observer

Finalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism From a New York Times investigative reporter, this “authoritative and devastating account of the impacts of social media” (New York Times Book Review) tracks the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech’s breakneck race to drive engagement—and profits—at all costs fractured the world. The Chaos Machine is “an essential book for our times” (Ezra Klein). We all have a vague sense that social media is bad for our minds, for our children, and for our democracies. But the truth is that its reach and impact run far deeper than we have understood. Building on years of international reporting, Max Fisher tells the gripping and galling inside story of how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social network preyed on psychological frailties to create the algorithms that drive everyday users to extreme opinions and, increasingly, extreme actions. As Fisher demonstrates, the companies’ founding tenets, combined with a blinkered focus on maximizing engagement, have led to a destabilized world for everyone. Traversing the planet, Fisher tracks the ubiquity of hate speech and its spillover into violence, ills that first festered in far-off locales, to their dark culmination in America during the pandemic, the 2020 election, and the Capitol Insurrection. Through it all, the social-media giants refused to intervene in any meaningful way, claiming to champion free speech when in fact what they most prized were limitless profits. The result, as Fisher shows, is a cultural shift toward a world in which people are polarized not by beliefs based on facts, but by misinformation, outrage, and fear. His narrative is about more than the villains, however. Fisher also weaves together the stories of the heroic outsiders and Silicon Valley defectors who raised the alarm and revealed what was happening behind the closed doors of Big Tech. Both panoramic and intimate, The Chaos Machine is the definitive account of the meteoric rise and troubled legacy of the tech titans, as well as a rousing and hopeful call to arrest the havoc wreaked on our minds and our world before it’s too late.

Shows how the Russian practice of 'political technology' (politics as manipulation) has been replicated in countries across the world.

Good Thinking is our best defense against anti-vaccine paranoia, climate denial, and other dire threats of today Publisher’s Note: Good Thinking was previously published in the UK as The Irrational Ape. In our ever-more-polarized society, there’s at least one thing we still agree on: The world is overrun with misinformation, faulty logic, and the gullible followers who buy into it all. Of course, we’re not among them—are we? Scientist David Robert Grimes is on a mission to expose the logical fallacies and cognitive biases that drive our discourse on a dizzying array of topics–from vaccination to abortion, 9/11 conspiracy theories to dictatorial doublespeak, astrology to alternative medicine, and wrongful convictions to racism. But his purpose in Good Thinking isn’t to shame or place blame. Rather, it’s to interrogate our own assumptions–to develop our eye for the glimmer of truth in a vast sea of dubious sources–in short, to think critically. Grimes’s expert takedown of irrationality is required reading for anyone wondering why bad thinking persists and how we can defeat it. Ultimately, no one changes anyone else’s mind; we can only change our own–and give others the tools to do the same.

Many of us think of activism as signing petitions, attending rallies or marches, or engaging in political agendas. But what does it look like to be moved by the things that moved God's heart in the day-to-day? How can we live in such a way that we are always, out of habit, contributing to a more just society? In this inspiring and accessible book, pastor J.W. Buck shows you how to engage in 7 practices to be a faithful activist in the world today, including choosing · thoughtful resistance over thoughtless compliance · loving your neighbor over fearing your differences · seeking forgiveness over revenge · resting over endless working · practicing nonviolence over violence · and more If you've wanted to get involved in justice work but aren't sure where to start, this practical and visually engaging book will show you how you can develop everyday habits drawn from the life of Jesus that make the world a better place.

“A damning investigation of dark money by a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee” (Kirkus Reviews) with a new preface on recent disclosures about efforts to influence the Court “There’s no senator I can think of who’s done more sleuthing to figure out the money trail in American politics, particularly as it affects the courts.”—Jane Mayer, author of the national bestseller Dark Money As the story of Supreme Court malfeasance and ethics violations repeatedly makes front-page news, the paperback version of The Scheme comes at a time of crisis for the American judiciary. Following his book Captured on corporate capture of regulatory and government agencies, and his years of experience as a prosecutor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, whom Senator Elizabeth Warren calls a “a powerful voice in defending our American democracy against the relentless, pervasive—and often hidden—power of corporate special interests,” here turns his attention to the right-wing scheme to capture the United States Supreme Court. Whitehouse chronicles a hidden-money campaign using an armada of front groups, helped by the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, employing the Federalist Society as an appointments turnstile, and with the same small handful of right-wing billionaires and corporations enticing the Senate to break rules, norms, and precedents to confirm wildly inappropriate nominees who would advance their anti-government agenda. Now available in an affordable paperback edition with a new preface addressing the Reverend Schenck disclosures about politicking the justices and Justice Thomas’s recently disclosed conflicts of interest, The Scheme offers what Kirkus Reviews calls “a maddening indictment of a corrupt and corrupted judiciary.”