Barack Obama on the Dangers of Social Media | Prince Harry Interview [BBC Radio 4 Today]

During his BBC Radio 4’s Today interview with Prince Harry, former U.S. President Barack Obama expressed his views on the dangers of social media, and what citizens can do to promote meaningful dialogue in their communities.

“The question is: how do we harness this technology that allows a multiplicity of voices, a diversity of views but does not lead to a Balkanisation of our society but rather continues to promote ways of finding common ground?”

He added: “All of us in leadership have to find ways to recreate a common space on the internet. One of the dangers of the internet is people can have entirely different realities. They can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases.”

One of the best ways to fight this tendency was “to make sure that online communities do not just stay online, but move offline”, he argued.

Social media had a power to convene and connect but people should then “meet in a pub, a place of worship, or a neighbourhood and get to know each other”, he said.

“The truth is, on the internet everything is simpified, but when you meet people face to face it turns out it is complicated,” the former president said, adding it was then possible to find surprising areas of common ground.

He commented: “It is harder to be as obnoxious and cruel in person as people can be anonymously on the internet.”

Saying he now wanted to create platforms for social change for young people, Obama advised that “sending out an hashtag in of itself can bring about change, it can be a powerful way to raise awareness, but you have to get on the ground and do something”.

[freakyfarooq]

I cannot imagine in a 1000 years would Trump speak so elegantly.