The Hype Machine

July 15, 2020
The head of MIT's Social Analytics lab warns that Facebook and other social media titans are controlling our behavior--and that breaking up the behemoths won't solve the problem. In 2018, Aral and two colleagues made headlines when they published a study that found that lies travel faster than truth online. Such attention-grabbing facts abound in this survey of what the author calls "the Hype Machine," or "the real-time communications ecosystem created by social media," and how it is changing behavior. As the author shows how social networks use "psychological, economic, and technical hooks" to lock in and manipulate people, he makes some points covered in books such as Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. Aral also includes a fair amount of material that will hold interest mainly for marketers or other professional persuaders--e.g., "Digital ads don't work nearly as well as they're advertised." The author shines, however, when he validates or challenges many popular beliefs about social media. Anyone who fears that Russia might use Facebook to disrupt the 2020 presidential election, he suggests, is right to do so--but they should also worry about China and Iran. Anyone who cheered Twitter's decision to label fake-news tweets should consider two facts: Such labels can also cause readers to distrust true news and create an "implied truth effect" that leads readers to believe that anything not labeled false is true. For all this, Aral argues that leviathans like Facebook don't need to be broken up but could be reined in by laws that, for example, would increase data portability and allow people to take data shared online to other networks just as they can take their phone numbers to new carriers. Ardent trust-busters may disagree, but Aral's arguments are clear and stimulating, and as the presidential election nears, the book could hardly be timelier. A useful, data-rich analysis of how we use social media--and how it uses us.

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September 1, 2020

Aral (director, Initiative on Digital Economy, MIT) takes readers on a wild journey to explore the role of social media in our lives. The hype machine is "real time communications ecosystem created by social media," in which users join and engage with one another on such platforms. Drawing on decades of research and personal experiences, Aral ambitiously shows the promises and perils of social media networks, and its enduring costs such as privacy and access. These networks offer new economic opportunities and social mobility benefits for users through the hype machine, but there are still major disparities in access to be addressed. For example, Aral argues that the hype machine's algorithmic patterns can enhance opportunities for users who have a high socioeconomic standing to expand their networks. Aral advocates for a "healthier social ecosystem" and designing a system that follows norms and strives for collaborations and diverse perspectives. VERDICT Timely for readers interested in important issues, such as data ethics, privacy, platform policies and regulations, the role of social media tech giants in our lives, and how these tools impact consumers' behaviors.--Raymond Pun, Alder Graduate Sch. of Education, CA

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