Trust in Tech, Episode 11: The Impact of Social Media on the Past and Present: History, Hate, and Techno-imperialism

Welcome to the Trust in Tech podcast, a project by the Integrity Institute — a community driven think tank which advances the theory and practice of protecting the social internet, powered by our community of integrity professionals.

This episode features Jason Steinhauer, author of "History Disrupted: How Social Media and the World Wide Web Have Changed the Past", and Integrity Institute member Theodora Skeadas, public policy professional with 10 years of experience at the intersection of technology, society, and safety. Theo has worked in Twitter, Booz Allen Hamilton, and is currently president of Harvard W3D: Women in Defense, Diplomacy, and Development.

In recent years, social media has been a breeding ground for disinformation, hate speech, and the spread of harmful ideologies.

Jason argues that social media has birthed a new genre of historical communication that he calls “e-history,” a user-centric, instantly-gratifying version of history that often avoids the true complexity of the past. Theo retorts that social media and wikipedia are non-gate-kept institutions that have allowed for the democratization of history - so both the winners and the losers write the past.

Disclaimer: The views in this episode only represent the views of the people involved in the recording of the episode. They do not represent Meta’s or any other entity’s views. 

Links:

Jason’s book: History, Disrupted: How Social Media and the World Wide Web Have Changed the Past

Jason’s substack: History Club

Harvard’s W3D: Women in Defense, Diplomacy and Development newsletter: Threo

All Tech is Human: website

Credits:

Produced by Talha Baig

Music by Zhao Shen

Special Thanks to Rachel, Sean, Cass and Sahar for their continued support