[Music]
we need to let social media run amok run
wild because the truth it breaks they
need to be broken you know at first we
embraced this new uncontrolled medium
with such hope right it gave people who
didn't know in a television station or a
newspaper the the power to bypass the
censors and to make their voices heard
and we celebrated the power of those
voices in Iran in Tunisia in Egypt and
now so many of those hopes have turned
to fear fear of the hatred and lies that
also seem to spread without control lies
that can become so widespread that they
can seem more real than the truth and so
we need to rush in right we need to we
need to step in and regulate control of
social media and save our truths from
the lies but that would be a mistake so
we spend all our time talking with the
problem of the lies and then and and the
lives are a problem but we missed the
bigger problem the bigger prices the
bigger crisis is our truths truth that
social media has exposed to be so weak
that blatant lies can look just as
strong and this corruption of our truths
it didn't again in the social media age
it began in the mass media age because
that's when manufacturing truth like so
many things became a big scale industry
propaganda advertising public relations
it was in the mass media age that we
learned that the simplest truth is the
best one because that is the truth that
we can package and sell at a whole new
scale but we're talking about truth here
right and truth is supposed to be one of
the most elusive and beautiful and
mind-blowing things that we can ever
search for what is truth I don't know I
can't know because truth is supposed to
be the reality that is bigger than
ourselves to find truth we need to get
together and go and search for it
together and if without that search
then we're all alone because we're
trapped in our own perspective that's
truth but in the mass media age became
something completely different it became
a cheap commodity a product that we we
pumped out with an industrial formula
and even the formula was ridiculously
simple you take any message doesn't
matter what it is pump it full of expert
opinion and statistics you wrap it up in
some righteousness and maybe some sex
and then you broadcast it through just a
handful of channels again and again and
again and voila
truth truth enough to sell you that
cigarettes are slimming truth enough to
sell us on big statements like
globalization is a good thing and don't
get me wrong
globalization is a good thing that
statement is true but only with so many
caveats that it could also be false and
the problem is where did the caveats go
right what is the full truth of
globalization that we simplified away I
mean there were bookshelves of competing
economic theories about what all happens
when we tangle the world's economies
together huge political choices how are
we going to share the gains how are we
going to spread the losses if at all
right and who is we in this conversation
is that our district our country our
region humanity there were big
philosophical questions to like you know
what are we after ultimately on this
planet is it is at the end of poverty
more wealth more individual freedom
social order for us or my children's
children are we going to talk about
nature here anywhere somewhere my
beautiful questions I personally I would
have loved to live in an age when we
explored those answers together and
imagine what we might have learned from
one another how we might have advanced
as a civilization but this was the
height of the mass media age and so
globalization this Titanic project to
reshape humanity it was packaged and
promoted on every channel as an
inevitable process and how sad is that
what did we deny ourselves when we did
that and now we're a decade into the
social media age and
we're all learning to become
broadcasters and we've added many more
voices to the conversation and that
that's great but we haven't added
complexity to the message in fact the
messages are getting even simpler right
and now we're electing populist so the
Masters of simplifying reality so that
now society is drowning in simple truths
and what is becoming obvious what is
becoming obvious the two things we need
to see to end this corruption and the
first is that the formula is now
worthless right mass media turned making
truth into a formula social media has
given it to everyone so that now we can
all cook up truths in our basement might
pump them full of opinion and statistics
and churn them out and what have we
discovered that we have spewed out so
many contradictory truths that we have
broken public trust in experts and
statistics all right so now the formula
is worthless the more we use it the less
it persuades and the other thing that is
now obvious is that the simple truth is
self-defeating see in the maspeedy age
that was the best one it reached the
most people but now we've discovered
that the other side of simplifying truth
is that we commit lies of omission and
it used to be that those omissions were
ignored right everything that was
omitted from the broadcast it had no
voice but now whoa right each of those
omissions finds a voice it is your
opportunity to steal my followers to
mock me as mainstream and to dismiss my
facts as fake news and we've all learned
that in the social media age the easier
the simpler we make the truth the easier
it is to ignore it what are already
rejected to decide that this doesn't
represent my reality and we start
declaring our own truths and when we all
do that when we all simplify the truth
down to our own perspective that's when
the difference between the truth and a
lie becomes just a matter of perspective
so that's where we are today right
thanks to social media the formula we
use to persuade one another doesn't
persuade anyone
and the truths we use to bring people to
our side they alienate as many people as
we convince so the truths that we all
now possess are broken they're broken
they may still feel good but they don't
do anything in the world that the truth
is supposed to do and I say good
riddance right
they were never worthy of us but it does
leave us a problem what now now and this
is exciting we get to make a choice for
a whole new relationship with truth and
as far as I can see it we've only got
two options one we can declare that the
truth is dead these are not small
choices by the way the truth is dead and
we need to find a replacement source of
sincerity in our groups a lot of us are
already making this choice right we buy
what our group is buying we believe what
our group believes and guess what we've
discovered Wow the messages we consume
through our groups they taste better
they taste more authentic than anything
that was ever baked in the factory of
mass media and that's why the populace
are winning but the downside is if we
declare truth is dead then democracy
dies with it because without truth there
is no reality that is bigger than my own
beliefs and elections are just a contest
to see who can be the loudest and we
will all become too self-righteous for
the peaceful transfer of power to stay
peaceful and that leaves us with option
two I'm not a big fan of option one
option two is we resurrect truth somehow
we reverse a century of selling the
simple truth to each other and we embark
together on a search at scale for the
truth that is bigger than ourselves that
we depend upon each other to understand
and we figure out how to use this new
wondrous social medium to build bigger
more complex truths together instead of
always hitting each other over the head
with little ones now I'm not going to
pretend to know how we get
and that's part of this we've all got to
stop pretending to no but let me suggest
where we could start and we've got to
start deep because this is a deep
problem if we want to build a society
that hungers for that builds complex
truths together then we need to separate
the proofs and we're all familiar with
separation of powers right in a free
society we need to separate the
legislature the executive the judiciary
so that we can only say what is right
when different authorities work together
and it's got to become the same with
truth we need to separate the proofs so
that no one perspective be it economic
or scientific historical cultural
philosophical spiritual gets to say what
is true so that we can only say what is
true together when different ways of
seeing the world work together and some
of these proofs are formal institutions
like journalism like the Academy or
religion or Wikipedia others exist as
traditions as values all of them add
complexity had a healthy dose of doubt
to the truths that we hold if they stand
strong and apart but when ad dollars
decide what journalists report or when
universities dependent for their
research budgets on politicians with a
stake in the outcome when we put a price
tag on our values like citizenship and
and sell it as investor class migration
when we let the proofs concentrate
that's when we run the risk that were no
longer just selling each other simple
truths we begin searching for simple
truths we become satisfied with simple
truths you know what happens if we let
the separation of powers fail the
president who holds office becomes a
tyrant over us what happens if we let
the separations of proofs fail the views
that we hold become tyrants over us and
I think that's the deepest problem that
we've got to solve if you want to start
down this new road we got to figure out
how do we how do we separate the proofs
how do we create a healthy space for
doubt and complexity to flourish in our
truths and the good news is that finding
ways to separate the proofs is not the
hard part all right a country can
guarantee academic freedom in its
constitution a community can crowd fund
to buy back their local paper and put it
in a public trust very simply we can
meet people who look at the world
differently and sit down and talk and
listen finding ways to cultivate healthy
doubt in society that's not the hard
part the hard part is we don't want to
write we've been offered this historic
choice between the death of truth and
its resurrection and we chose zombie the
truths we now possess are broken but we
are clinging to them anyway
and I get it right we we like simplicity
we like we like certainty you know
complexity and doubt not so much we like
hitting each other over the head with
simple truths but if that's our choice
then let's be honest both the real
problem we face in this social media age
is it is not that the lies are so
powerful it is that we are satisfied
with weak truths weak truths and we're
gonna do our best to protect them by
suppressing the lies by telling the
Facebook's of the world you know you
guys need to take better care of our
worthless formula and we also need to be
honest about the downside if we are
satisfied with the truths that we now
possess then we accept to always live in
fear of tweeting thumbs and I can't
accept that
none of us should accept that and we
don't have to instead let's let social
media run amok and leave ourselves no
choice but to find a way to search for
stronger truths together thank you
[Applause]