The Chaos Machine

'The Chaos Machine is an essential book for our times' - Ezra Klein The Chaos Machine is the story of how the world was driven mad by social media. The election of populists like Trump and Bolsonaro; strife and genocide in countries like Myanmar; the rampant spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories as deadly as the pandemic itself; all of these are products of a breakdown in our social and political lives, a breakdown driven by the apps, companies and algorithms that compete constantly for our attention. Max Fisher is a leading New York Times technology reporter whose work has covered the way that social media sites - driven increasingly by artificial intelligence rather than human ingenuity - push users towards more and more extreme positions, deepening the divisions in society in pursuit of greater engagement and profit. With extraordinary access to the most powerful players in Silicon Valley, and with testimonies from around the world of the havoc being wreaked by our online selves, The Chaos Machine shows us how we got to this uniquely perilous moment - and how we might get out of it.

Max Fisher is an international reporter and columnist for The New York Times. He has reported from five continents on conflict, diplomacy, social change and other topics. He writes The Interpreter, a column exploring the ideas and context behind major world events. A weekly newsletter of the same name features original reporting and insights. He is based in New York. Before joining The Times in 2016, he launched several web-based projects aimed at expanding the audience for foreign news. This included, in 2011, an international news vertical for The Atlantic magazine; in 2012, the Washington Post's foreign news blog, WorldViews; and, in 2014, as one of the founding editors of Vox.com.