Antisocial
Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation
Lavin Exclusive Speaker
Is social media moving us towards a better future, or a worse one? Andrew Marantz says that we’re the ones shaping the future, not the internet: “People make hashtags trend or not trend; we need to stop waiting for the internet to shape some inevitable future and get to work.” An acclaimed New Yorker writer and TED speaker, Andrew has dedicated his career to fighting back against the spread of hate and misinformation on the internet. In his eye-opening, practical talks, Andrew draws from his book Antisocial—a New York Times Editors' Choice—to show us how to be leaders of a happier internet, where online communities can bring us together instead of keeping us apart.
New Yorker writer and acclaimed author Andrew Marantz wants us to be smart about the way we question information on social media—and he’s teaching us how. He tackles our urgent concerns about politics, social media, technology, and censorship, and uses his expertise to discover how people form beliefs and under what circumstances those beliefs can change for the better: “We cannot just look away from hate and misinformation”, he says, “we have to try and understand it.”
Andrew’s book Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation is a deeply immersive chronicle of how Silicon Valley set out to create a free and democratic internet—and how alt-right propagandists have used it to propel their hateful beliefs: “I wanted to know who was spreading misinformation and hateful messages, and the kind of impact it was having on our society.” The book is both an exploration of human behavior—how we may not even necessarily believe the things we’re sharing online—and a call for social media companies to optimize their platforms to reward creativity and kindness over emotional engagement.
Antisocial was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a New York Times Notable Book, included on Fast Company’s list of books on technology you should read, and was called “funny and scary, antic and illuminating…a must-read” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert.
Andrew is also a contributor to Radiolab and The New Yorker Radio Hour and has written for Harper's, Mother Jones, the New York Times, and many other outlets. He holds an undergraduate degree in religion from Brown University and a master's degree in literary nonfiction from New York University.