It was blatantly obvious that social networks are ideal tools for corporate and political propaganda. It was obvious from the very beginning, where people sung praises to Web 2.0 and "collective intelligence". Moreover, real technologists wrote about it, extensively, at the time:
If some "technologist" acts surprised by this turn of events now, I see only two possibilities:
1. They are genuine, but absolutely suck at analyzing how technology actually works in society.
2. They are liars who knew the dangers of such systems, but didn't find them objectionable because it suited their goals at the time.
What seriously disturbs me is that almost everyone from academia or big tech who engage in public discourse on this issue right now - almost all of them do act surprised.
https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maois...
If some "technologist" acts surprised by this turn of events now, I see only two possibilities:
1. They are genuine, but absolutely suck at analyzing how technology actually works in society.
2. They are liars who knew the dangers of such systems, but didn't find them objectionable because it suited their goals at the time.
What seriously disturbs me is that almost everyone from academia or big tech who engage in public discourse on this issue right now - almost all of them do act surprised.