Jul 21, 2022 · 44m · big-technology
Jonathan Haidt: Why Social Media Makes Our Society Stupid
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Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt joins Alex Kantrowitz on the Big Technology Podcast to analyze how social media architecture induces 'structural stupidity' across democratic institutions, while proposing regulatory, cryptographic, and design-based solutions to restore constructive public discourse.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Alex holds 25.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Alex as informed peer 5.8 Guest teaching 4.6 Guest disagreement 2.0 Alex pushing back 3.4
speaking balance: gold is Alex, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 25:25 Haidt rejects citizen responsibility framing
Haidt bluntly interrupts Kantrowitz to reject the idea that citizens are to blame for foreign manipulation or social media harms, characterizing it as a systemic trap.
Hardest push from Alex ▶ 11:53 Kantrowitz challenges societal stupidity thesis using BidenKantrowitz directly tests Haidt's core thesis by asking how society is uniquely stupid if moderate centrist Joe Biden won the presidency decisively.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 20:20 Haidt illustrates downstream virality of small disinformation seedsHaidt educates Kantrowitz on information flows, using the Soviet AIDS conspiracy theory to prove that low direct exposure does not equate to low real-world impact.
Alex holds their own ▶ 32:45 Kantrowitz cites Saudi Twitter infiltration regarding authenticationKantrowitz demonstrates deep domain expertise by citing his own investigative reporting on Saudi infiltration at Twitter to challenge mandatory identity verification.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Alex as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Alex pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defining Structural Stupidity in Academia and Journalism | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Kantrowitz asks Haidt to define 'the stupid' and Haidt explains the concept of structural stupidity in academia and journalism. Haidt controls the floor with sociological framing while Kantrowitz mostly listens. | |
| Social Media Dart Guns and Polarization Demographics | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Kantrowitz cites exact demographic figures from the Hidden Tribes study to prompt Haidt on who uses social media 'dart guns'. Haidt builds on the data to explain how small extreme groups intimidate moderates. | |
| Architectural Shifts from Connection to Hyper-Virality | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Haidt praises Kantrowitz's reporting on the creator of the retweet button (Chris Wetherell) to explain how platforms shifted from connection to hyper-virality. Kantrowitz elaborates on his thesis about performative outrage. | |
| Performative Platforms, Internet Trolls, and Russian Active Measures | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Kantrowitz synthesizes Haidt's argument, prompting Haidt to add male trolls and Russian active measures as key actors destabilizing the public square. | |
| Political Asymmetry and Cultural Left Overreach | 6 | 5 | 3 | 6 | Kantrowitz pushes back by pointing out that centrist Joe Biden won the presidency if politics is purely dominated by stupidity. Haidt reframes the issue around the asymmetry between political party dysfunction and cultural left overreach. | |
| Institutional Accountability Versus Digital Mob Justice | 6 | 5 | 2 | 5 | Kantrowitz challenges Haidt's negative view of social media call-out culture by noting it has provided accountability against corrupt power figures. Haidt responds by distinguishing accountable whistleblower processes from anonymous mob witch hunts. | |
| Disinformation Virality and National Security Vulnerabilities | 7 | 6 | 3 | 6 | Kantrowitz pushes back on whether foreign state disinformation is an overstated threat given tech platform defenses, but Haidt counters by detailing how small initial foreign seeds achieve massive virality through downstream amplifiers. | |
| The Social Media Commons Dilemma and Regulatory Oversight | 5 | 6 | 4 | 4 | Kantrowitz asks whether individual user demand and responsibility play a larger role than platform mechanics. Haidt immediately rejects user blame, explaining collective action traps through commons dilemmas and calling for government regulation. | |
| Radicalization Mechanics and Unchecked Online Anonymity | 6 | 5 | 2 | 5 | Kantrowitz cites Brendan Nyhan's research suggesting extremist content is largely self-selected rather than algorithmic. Haidt concedes the finding but argues unverified anonymous accounts still provide an unnecessary accelerant to radicalization. | |
| Proposed Solutions for Zero-Knowledge User Authentication | 7 | 6 | 2 | 4 | Kantrowitz raises concerns that authenticating accounts could endanger dissidents and activists, citing his own reporting on Saudi spies at Twitter. Haidt explains zero-knowledge level-2 authentication where human uniqueness is verified without storing PII. | |
| Adding Friction to Virality and User Trollishness Ratings | 6 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Kantrowitz proposes forcing users to copy-paste links to create friction, and Haidt suggests rating users on a 1-to-5 trollishness scale. Kantrowitz constructively notes the edge cases and difficulty of defining trolling. | |
| Long-Term Technological Optimism and Podcast Conclusion | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Both guest and host share optimistic long-term perspectives on technology maturing over historical cycles before Kantrowitz closes the show. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Haidt: IQ is rising over decades in the US and globally
“Americans are getting smarter over the decades. IQ is rising in our country and around the world. It's not that Americans are getting stupid.”
Haidt: Structural stupidity occurs even when individual members are not stupid
“Just as you can have structural racism, even if nobody is a racist, you can have structural stupidity, even if no one is stupid.”
Haidt: Mandatory diversity training does not work and makes things worse
“Mandatory diversity training you know, all these things we did in response to protesters that don't work or that make things worse.”
Haidt: Social media intimidation by vocal minorities degrades group intelligence
“A small number of young people use social media, not to make arguments, not to respond to arguments, but to destroy anyone who contradicts their sacred values. And that's what makes a group stupid.”
Haidt: Twitter is the worst platform for reputational attacks and social shaming
“Twitter in particular, Twitter is the worst here, but it's also on Facebook and Slack and other channels.”
Haidt: Social media intimidation prevents university leaders from defending academic values
“Social media gave everybody a dart gun, and as a result, Because most people don't want to shoot anybody, but the far left, the far right, trolls, a few groups of people shoot moderates in their institutions, and they shoot the leaders of the institutions. So …”
Kantrowitz: Progressive activists and devoted conservatives dominate political social media
“The furthest to the right, known as devoted conservatives comprised six percent of the U S population, the group furthest to the left, the progressive activists comprised eight percent of the population. The progress the progressive act activists were by far t…”
Haidt: Progressive activists are mostly young, white, and rely on intimidation
“The group furthest left, the progressive activists, that's the second whitest of all the groups. It's actually very interesting. This is mostly young white people who have a kind of politics in which, again, they don't learn to make arguments. They don't persu…”
Haidt: Social media toxicity began with 2009 virality mechanics, not 2004 networking
“Social media was not at all toxic in 2004, you know, when the Facebook came out and in my space, and if you're sharing photos of your dog, there's no problem. It really was the move to the newsfeed and then especially The implementation of the retweet button, …”
Haidt: Performative social platforms destroy youth mental health and damage democracy
“We're talking about a small number of platforms where people do the labor. They create the content in exchange for prestige. That's what I think is, is destroying a generation in terms of mental health. And that's what I think is most damaging to democracies.”
Haidt: Internet trolls are almost exclusively men
“There are two other groups that use this very effectively. One is trolls and these are men. They're almost always men. I've never heard of a female troll who enjoy harassing, burning things down, causing trouble.”
Haidt: Republican Party has purged almost all of its moderates
“The Republican party is the stupid party. They shoot their moderates. They don't have any more moderates other than Liz Cheney and a couple, you know, but they used to have more than three and now they down to whatever, just a couple. The Republican Party is a…”
Haidt: Democratic Party is functional because moderates usually win debates
“It's not the Democratic Party that's stupid. The Democratic Party Has moderates and the far left and guess who wins? Usually the moderates. So the democratic party is a functional party. They have debates. The moderates usually win.”
Haidt: Studies show majorities across all demographic groups dislike wokeness
“The hidden tribe study and others find that majorities of everybody hate wokeness, black, white, male, female, even majority of Democrats don't like wokeness.”
Haidt: Democrats are likely to get wiped out electorally
“But the Democrats aren't, are likely to get wiped out because Most people really hate what the cultural left is doing in their schools, their companies and their country.”
Kantrowitz: Major #MeToo Stories Originated from Investigative Reporting, Not Twitter
“And a lot of the big stories in the Me Too era didn't really originate on Twitter. They resulted from reporters actually getting sources to come on record.”
Haidt: China will probably be more competent at online influence than Russia
“The Chinese have much more focused interests. Of course they want us to think well of China. They want to suppress anyone who criticizes China. And they're probably in the long run a lot more competent and capable and persistent than the Russians.”
Haidt: Tech platforms cannot stop foreign disinformation without intelligence agency coordination
“Yes, of course they took some easy steps, but there is no way they can get a handle on this. This has to be, and I think they call it for this. This has to be a sort of a government-wide partnership between Coordinated between the CIA, the FBI, NSA, Facebook, …”
Haidt: Instagram will not enforce underage bans because kids would switch to TikTok
“They won't do anything about it because if they do keep kids off below 13, then the kids will just go to TikTok. So, you know, I understand why Instagram doesn't do much about underage use but it's a trap.”
Haidt: No US government agency has regulatory jurisdiction over social media
“There is no government agency that has jurisdiction over social media. It doesn't go out over the airwaves. So it's not FCC.”
Haidt: American democracy is likely to fail catastrophically within two decades
“I think that American democracy is likely to fail catastrophically at some point in the next decade or two decades. It's very hard to predict the future, but I think we are, the way we're headed is a very, very bad direction.”
Haidt: humanID and Worldcoin could work for social media authentication
“Human ID.org and world coin, those are two that would work for level two authentication.”
Haidt: Condition Section 230 liability protection on basic platform responsibilities
“I would like us to consider that the federal government mandate That if you want the benefit of level of, you want the benefit of section two 30 protection and this incredible freedom from lawsuits that only you and the gun lobby have because of lobbying, you …”