'Burn it to the ground' — Mark Little on the future of social media
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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On the latest episode of Real Health at Meet Carl Henry, I'm delighted to meet Professor John Nolan, chatting all things eye health, brain health, and a whole lot more.
There's positive movement in EU. With respect to specific labeling, if I was to say to you today that say your interest or your listeners are interested in carotenoids today, and they might just go out to a health store or a pharmacy and buy a carotenoid supplement, seventy percent of those supplements will not have in them on its assess. Whoa. Seventy percent seventy percent. I can show you the data on that. This was a shock to me too.
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This kind of stealth wealth culture that we were seeing back then was I think symptomatic of what was happening in California. When you looked at these people, they seemed to be the paragons of a scruffy, almost hippie nature, very much performative of the social justice movements that were surrounding San Francisco at the time. But they were all business. And it it was that sort of visible sign of we are all people that's live in offices where we're fully stocked with avocados and we have love where you work and neon signs on the wall. But really deep down, like we are a corporation and a more efficient form of corporation than imperial companies of the past.
You're listening to the Big Tech Show with Adrian Weckler, sponsored by Deal. Deal lets you hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone anywhere. Visit DEEL dot com forward slash big tech. Hello and you're welcome to the Big Tech Show with me, Adrian Weckler. Now, my guest today, I don't really need to introduce to our viewers, but I will anyway. He's an award-winning journalist, one of the most recognizable faces on TV for years, before leaving to create a startup that was bought by Rupert Murdoch, then became boss at Twitter in Ireland, then created another startup, Kinsen, which was bought by Spotify in 2022. He's someone who people love to listen to on the big issues from what's happening in the States to the internet to AI and he's just written a book.
Which is part memoir, part insider's guide to working in big tech, and part explainer about what's going on, including what we should all do next.
What was the internet’s “last good day,” and how did algorithms change social media?
The book is called The Last Good Day on the Internet Finding Hope and Humanity in a Super Human World. Mark Little, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Adrian. Good to be back
Tell me what the last
good day on the internet was.
Twenty fifteen, people might remember it as the day that we lost our complete reason over a dress. And the dress was either gold or blue. And the entire like almost like a world coup final, everyone's divided in the world about which one they saw. And it was one of those moments where classic internet moment that we all just lost our heads around something that was in a collective like excitement. There was a bit of banter, a bit of opposition, but we finally all felt more human at the end of it. That's the first part of that last good day. It also happens just about the time. that these turbocharged algorithms that have been coming out of the tur deep learning revolution kick in in the recommendation systems of the big platforms.
And the last good day is something internet writers talk about a science to this day because from then on We're no longer having These serendipitous encounters with each other. We're no longer talking to friends and family. We are being surveilled by essentially algorithms that are sitting on our shoulders telling us what to do next. So there's nothing really after that last good day that can be just unplanned, stumbling across something. It all from there on in is engineered for you, highly personalized.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:38
2
What was the internet’s “last good day,” and how did algorithms change social media?
2:38–7:10
3
How did Twitter’s business model put revenue ahead of global communities?
7:10–13:11
4
How did Silicon Valley’s founders shape Twitter and its culture?
13:11–18:41
5
Should social media be restricted for teenagers, and should users remain anonymous?
18:41–24:47
6
Why does Mark Little regret selling Storyful, and how did Kinzen tackle online harm?
24:47–35:40
7
What did the Joe Rogan controversy reveal about Spotify’s approach to content moderation?
35:40–39:18
8
How could AI threaten critical thinking, and how can people use it responsibly?
39:18–1:00:46
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Big Tech Show
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