The Gatekeepers

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The founders of social media conquered the world... and they're not finished yet.

As Facebook turns 20, Jamie Bartlett uncovers how social media allowed a new digital elite and their platforms to conquer the planet and control what we see.

Jamie Bartlett traces the story of how and why social media companies have become the new information gatekeepers, and what the decisions they make mean for all of us.
 
It's 20 years since Facebook launched and the social media we know today - but it all started with a crazy idea to realise a hippie dream of building a "global consciousness". The plan was to build a connected world, where everyone could access everyone and everything all the time; to overthrow the old gatekeepers and set information free.

But social media didn't turn out that way. Instead of setting information free - a new digital elite conquered the world and turned themselves into the most powerful people on the planet.
 
Now, they get to decide what billions of us see every day. They can amplify you. They can delete you. Their platforms can be used to coordinate social movements and insurrections. A content moderator thousands of miles away can change your life. What does this mean for democracy - and our shared reality?
 
It starts in the summer of love, with a home-made book that taught the counter-culture how to build a new civilisation - and accidentally led to the creation of the first social media platform. But a momentous decision in the mid-2000s would turn social media into giant advertising companies - with dramatic ramifications for everyone. To understand how we arrived here, Jamie tracks down the author of a 1996 law which laid the groundwork for web 2.0; interviews the Twitter employees responsible for banning Donald Trump who explain the reality of 'content moderation'; and speaks to Facebook's most infamous whistle-blower in a dusty room in Oxford. He goes in search of people whose lives have been transformed by the decisions taken by these new gatekeepers: a father whose daughter's death was caused by social media, a Nobel prize winning journalist from the Philippines who decided to stand up to a dictator and the son of an Ethiopian professor determined to avenge his father's murder. Far from being over, Jamie discovers that the battle over who controls the world's information has only just begun.

BBC Radio 4 LW

The Gatekeepers: 1. We Are as Gods

1. We Are as Gods

BBC Radio 4 - The Gatekeepers, 1. We Are as Gods

A hand-bound book cooked up in the summer of love inspires the pioneers of social media.

How did a strange handbound book passed around hippy communes in the summer of love influence the pioneers of social media? Jamie Bartlett travels to San Francisco to find out.

For years something strange has been happening online, but most of us have no idea what’s really going on. 

Ethnic conflict in Myanmar. A chemistry professor is killed in Ethiopia. A teenager dies in her bedroom in London. A mob storms the Capitol in Washington DC.

And that’s the moment that catches Jamie Bartlett’s eye. A few days after the riot, on January 9th 2021, the outgoing leader of the United States is suspended on social media. First Twitter, (renamed X), and then Facebook. A President silenced. It’s a glimpse behind the curtain. For the first time millions of us can see the power of technology companies. 

They can delete you. They can amplify you. They can change your life. Social media has conquered the world. 

Jamie Bartlett follows the roots of this story back to San Francisco : the home of Big Tech, where he meets one of the early pioneers of social media who tells him about a strange hand bound book, passed around hippy communes in the summer of love, and how it turned the world upside down. 

Archive Credits: Wolf of Wall Street, Paramount Pictures; Telecommunications Bill sign in, C-Span 1996; Bloomberg's TicTic 2019; Fox News 2020 

Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Producer: Caitlin Smith 
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Music: Jeremy Warmsley
Story Consultant: Kirsty Williams 
Researchers: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway 
Executive Producer: Peter McManus 
Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke. 
A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4

New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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