*Pointing at the Wrong Villain: Cass Sunstein and Echo Chambers* By David Weinberger JULY 20, 2017 HARVARD LAW professor, member of President Obama’s White House, and the most-cited constitutional law professor in the country, Cass Sunstein first addressed the internet’s role in the polarization of our culture 15 years ago. His argument has become an accepted part of any discussion about the net’s failings. Yet, he has now written the same book about this issue for the third time. To be sure, his persistence is laudable, but the problems with his assumptions are only becoming more obvious. The first appearance of this book was as Republic.com in 2001, which Sunstein updated in 2007 as Republic.com 2.0. The latest version, #Republic, retains most of the text from these prior versions with a shift in evidence and examples from websites (2001) and blogs (2007) to social media (2017). The new edition includes elaborations inessential to his argument. Why three times? Perhaps Sunstein is the prophet still unheard in his own land — although, given the prominence of his views, that’s not very plausible. Or perhaps the sins he decries have not become dire enough for us to act. Or perhaps we have failed to achieve the old ideals of civil discourse that he espouses because our new network is exposing a weakness in them. […] Continua qui: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/pointing-at-the-wrong-villain-cass-sunst...