Show Notes
One of the strange things about our new media universe, is how innocuous decisions taken in Silicon Valley - turning a dial, or adding a few lines of code to increase engagement - can change your life. In 2016, Instagram introduced a new way of looking at content: the non-chronological feed. Now, instead of seeing what your friends were posting in the order they were posting it, an algorithm brought you stuff based on search history, likes, and interactions. That’s how tech engineers saw things back then - not just at Instagram, but at Pinterest, and other platforms too - if you engage with something, that must mean you want more of it. Ian Russell believes that this algorithmic change may have altered the course of his 14 year old daughter Molly's life. Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Producer: Caitlin Smith Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore Composer: Jeremy Warmsley Story Consultant: Kirsty Williams Execuitve Producer: Peter McManus Commissioner: Dan Clarke A BBC Scotland Production for Radio 4. Archive: 'Instagram implements big changes to users' feed, ditches chronologixal content' DT Daily; March 16th 2016. US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Nov 7th 2023 If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, including urgent support, a list of organisations that can help is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline. 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
More from Everything Is Fake
Jamie and his AI companion Jimmy Botlett become increasingly difficult to tell apart as they bring you the final chapter of this story - featuring Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, who now wishes he'd thought harder about the consequences. Plus we hear claims that an engineer is building something rather frightening at one of the big AI companies. But what's true, what's fake, and what does any of it say about what's happening to all of us, right now? Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Series Producer: Tom Pooley Sound Design: Rob Speight Production Coordinator: Neena Abdullah Original music: Coach Conrad Editor: Craig Templeton Smith A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4
Jamie sits down with Dr Aseem Malhotra, the cardiologist who reaches millions through alternative media with his claims about Covid vaccines - and who is, he says, nervous about talking to the BBC. Jamie goes through his arguments carefully, with an open mind. But the harder question isn't whether Malhotra is right or wrong. It's what it means that so many people trust him more than they trust the institutions that are supposed to tell us the truth. Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Series Producer: Tom Pooley Sound Design: Rob Speight Production Coordinator: Neena Abdullah Original music: Coach Conrad Editor: Craig Templeton Smith A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4 Note: This episode has been edited since first broadcast. The programme discusses a peer reviewed academic paper in which the authors make clear it should not be used in support of the kinds of claims about Covid vaccine harms and benefits being made by Dr Malhotra. A statement that the authors made this clear in the paper because they were told to do so has been removed.
In the early 2000s, a young man in New Jersey was writing thousands of fake university essays for paying students. Around the same time, financial analysts in New York were rating toxic debt as safe. And in Silicon Valley, a new business philosophy was taking hold: fake it till you make it. Jamie Bartlett asks how so many people, in so many different worlds, arrived at the same conclusion at the same time. The answer, he thinks, has a name - The Lance Armstrong Defence. A quiet, creeping logic that says everyone else is doing it so why can't I? Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Series Producer: Tom Pooley Sound Design: Rob Speight Production Coordinator: Neena Abdullah Original music: Coach Conrad Editor: Craig Templeton Smith A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4.
In 1987, the same year Hulk Hogan body-slammed Andre the Giant, something else happened that would change America's relationship with the truth forever - a Washington regulator abolished the law that required broadcasters to present both sides of an argument. What followed was Morton Downey Jr, a furious chain-smoking provocateur who discovered that outrage was more compelling than accuracy. And Oprah Winfrey, who found that sincerity and emotional honesty could be just as powerful. Together, they popularised an idea that has quietly shaped the world we live in - that your truth is just as valid as the truth. Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Series Producer: Tom Pooley Sound Design: Rob Speight Production Coordinator: Neena Abdullah Original music: Coach Conrad Editor: Craig Templeton Smith A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4.
In episode two, Jamie ventures into the strange world of 1980s WWF wrestling - where performers and fans share an unspoken agreement to treat the whole spectacle as real. A shared illusion where everyone knows it's fake, but plays along because it feels true. It sounds like harmless fun. And for a while, it was. But Jamie soon wonders: what happens when an idea like that escapes the ring and changes the world? Credits: Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Series Producer: Tom Pooley Sound Design: Rob Speight Production Coordinator: Neena Abdullah Original music: Coach Conrad Editor: Craig Templeton Smith A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4.