Episode 2192: Mark Weinstein on how to restore our sanity online

Keen On

Early social media pioneer Mark Weinstein is deeply disturbed by the current state of social media. He’s not alone of course, but in his new book, Restoring Our Sanity Online, Weinstein lays out what he boasts is a “revolutionary social framework” to clean up social media. The book comes with blurbs from tech royalty like Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Steve Wozniak, but I wonder if Weinstein, in his attempt to right social media through a more decentralized Web3 style architecture , is trying a fix yesterday’s problem. In tech, timing is everything and the future of online sanity, as Gary Marcus noted a couple of days ago on this show, will be determined by our ability to harness AI. Rather than social media, that’s what we now need a revolutionary framework to protect us from.

MARK WEINSTEIN is a world-renowned tech entrepreneur, contemporary thought leader, privacy expert, and one of the visionary inventors of social networking. His adventure in social media has lasted over 25 years through three award-winning personal social media platforms enjoyed by millions of members worldwide. Mark is frequently interviewed and published in major media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fox, CNN, BBC, PBS, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, The Hill, and many more worldwide. He covers topics including social media, privacy, AI, free speech, antitrust, and protecting kids online. During his social media years, Mark’s advisors have included Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web; Steve “Woz” Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Sherry Turkle, MIT academic and tech ethics leader; Raj Sisodia, co-founder of the Conscious Capitalism movement; and many others. A leading privacy advocate, Mark's landmark 2020 TED Talk, “The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism,” exposed the many infractions and manipulations by Big Tech, and called for a privacy revolution. Mark has also been listed as one of the “Top 8 Minds in Online Privacy” and named “Privacy by Design Ambassador” by the Canadian government.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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