Ideas

In his 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society, Ron Deibert surveyed the traps and dark corners of the internet and social media. Now, Ron looks back at the questions he raised, in the company of the team of people who were commentators in the original series — and answers listener questions sent in.*This episode originally aired on May 28, 2021.

In his 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, Citizen Lab founder and director Ron Deibert wants to get us thinking about how best to mitigate the harms of social media, and in doing so, construct a viable communications ecosystem that supports civil society and contributes to the betterment of the human condition (instead of the opposite). *This episode originally aired on November 16, 2020.

What we don’t see — because it is so carefully hidden from the public eye — is the ecological impact of our social media usage and the wasteful consumption loop we’re trapped in, as we’re pushed to constantly upgrade our devices and turn simple electronics and appliances into “smart” machines. *This episode originally aired on November 13, 2020.

The initial vision of the internet was that it would empower individuals and expose the wrongdoings of state and corporate interests. But now the same technologies that had been used for public uprisings against oppressive governments are now being used by those governments against political demonstrators, whistleblowers and dissidents. *This episode originally aired on November 12, 2020.

Think you're Wonder Woman? Being addicted to your device can make you a little bit bionic. *This episode originally aired on January 13, 2021.

The internet is awash in conspiracy theories. In this lecture, Simon Fraser University professor Paul Budra examines conspiracy theories as an art form, using the long-running conspiracy theories over Shakespeare as a test case.*This episode originally aired on March 31, 2020.

Warning: Explicit Content | As the Twin Towers lay in rubble after Sept. 11, former U.S. president George W. Bush's administration leveraged the influence of Hollywood celebrities to sway the public to rally around the flag. *This episode originally aired on May 25, 2020.

Warning: Explicit Content | America's losing the Vietnam War shattered the 'heroic myth' that Hollywood had spent decades creating, according to historians and researchers. What followed was an era of films attempting to recapture past glories. *This episode originally aired on May 18, 2020.

The U.S. military had some little-known help in spinning public perception about it over the last seventy years: Hollywood. This series shows how movies functioned as the unofficial — but massively influential — propaganda arm of America's war efforts. *This episode originally aired on May 11, 2020.

In 1919, Romain Rolland wrote the Declaration of the Independence of the Mind as a call to intellectuals to rise above division, censorship and nationalism of their day. Nahlah Ayed speaks to Canadian and international thinkers to consider the role of the intellectual today, and to rewrite the declaration for our own post-truth moment. *This episode originally aired on April 16, 2021 and is part of our series, The Common Good.