Can Democracy Outlast Election 2032?
Book Description (Available October 6, 2020)
Imagine an imminent America where citizens are bombarded with personalized political messages from every smart device – yet information is so suspect, nobody can tell what the truth is.
The coronavirus pandemic provided a foretaste of an infuriating, dystopian future. From the start Americans fought over the most basic facts of the crisis, from death tolls to quack cures to the wisdom of stay-at-home orders. The splintered digital infosphere bred confusion and delusion, some of it fatal. Now think of our campaigns and elections. The digital information age means more than hyper-targeted, just-for-you messages from insurance companies and presidential candidates alike. It means oceans of disinformation engineered to sow false beliefs or simply disorient.
Big Data is on the way to fueling information environments so fine-tuned, no two of us hold the same view of reality, and no two voters hear the same pitch. Already, citizens don’t know who to trust or what to believe – about COVID-19 or anything else. If we ask nothing more of tech providers or digital citizens, the fog will continue to thicken. Irritation will merge into despair and then numbness... and democracy teeters.
“Cyrus Krohn’s journey from the White House to pioneering Internet strategy for Microsoft equips him with an arresting view on the future of digital political strategy.”
“Cyrus Krohn is a clear-eyed warrior from the generation that built the internet and the shiny objects in the digital infospace that changed the way we consume media.”
“Cyrus Krohn’s experience and insight offers a roadmap for going forward with perhaps the most influential factor of the last 125 years.”
Digital pioneer Cyrus Krohn knows the territory, and in Bombarded: How to Fight Back Against the Online Assault on Democracy, Krohn locates the roots of our blooming political chaos. But he goes beyond recounting 25 years of destabilizing Internet shock waves and rolls out a provocative action plan for rescuing the American system of campaigns and elections while there is still time.