“I walked into the internet naively in 1995, thinking that it was all altruistic and going to create a better society,” Krohn said. But the Seattle native now is sounding the alarm about the web’s threat to a functioning country. Krohn maintains that he is still hanging on to optimism, but his warnings in the book are also dire. “Massive digital forces are corroding the fundamental pillars that support American social and political life. The damage seems illimitable. The endgame toward which we hurtle is terrifying,” he writes on the book’s second page.

The book is called "Bombarded: How to Fight Back Against the Online Assault on Democracy." While Krohn clearly rejects the conspiracy theories of anti-vaccine activists and former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, he doesn’t spend a lot of time blaming one political group more than another. Largely, Krohn keeps his focus at a more structural level. His book is thick with potential solutions, and that's a big part of why this podcast exists, to do more than point out problems, but to also talk about ways forward.

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