Did technology kill the truth?

[Commentatry] We exist in a time when technological capabilities and economic incentives have combined to attack truth and weaken trust. It is not an act of pre-planned perdition. Unchecked, however, it will have the same effect. The broader question is how to deal with the exploitation of the Web as a vehicle for de-democratizing communities fueled by fact-free untruth? I would argue that it was software algorithms that put us in this situation, and it is software algorithms that can get us out of it. It is time for algorithms to start playing both sides of the street. An algorithm is like a recipe describing how to combine various inputs to produce the desired output. My friend and Harvard colleague Wael Ghonim has called for these inputs and outputs to be opened to the public through the common software practice of an open API. An API—an Application Programming Interface—is what allows two software programs to interact with each other. Adoption of an open API by social media platforms would not open up the “black box” secrets of the algorithm itself or expose personally identifiable information about users. But by opening up what goes into and comes out of the algorithm, third-party programmers could create “public interest algorithms” to understand the effects of the social media distribution.

So, will technology kill truth? The answer is: “Not if technology is allowed to respond in kind.” It was technology that enabled a business model to prioritize advertising velocity over factual veracity. The same technology, however, can also be programmed to fight for truth and trust. All that is necessary is for the social media platforms to move from secrecy to transparency.

[Tom Wheeler is the former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (2013-2017)].