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Charlotte Talks: How Trolls And Online Extremists Are Hijacking Discourse

Andrew Marantz. Photo Credit: Luke Marantz

Monday, Nov. 4, 2019

What happens when toxic, hateful beliefs from the dark corners of the internet leak into the mainstream? The author of "Anti-Social" joins us.

The New Yorker's Andrew Marantz spent three years talking with some of the worst people on the internet. He embedded with alt-right trolls and propagandists who use the dark corners of the web as a platform to share racist and xenophobic beliefs.

Occasionally we get little glimpses of the web's seedy underbelly when online hate speech incites real-world violence. 

How do these fringe beliefs leak into the mainstream? What is all of this doing to the American conversation? And what’s the responsibility of social networks who are hosting a platform for propaganda?

Guest host Erik Spanberg talks with Marantz about his book "Anti-Social."

Guest

Andrew Marantz, Author of "Anti-Social: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation." He is a staff writer at The New Yorker (@andrewmarantz)

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Erin Keever is Senior Producer of WFAE's Charlotte Talks with Mike Collins. She has been with the show since joining the station in 2006. She's a native Charlottean.