A brisk, well-informed, and urgent message.
A deep dive into the muck of fake news.
In the latest book in a growing genre, journalist Brill, author of The Teamsters and America’s Bitter Pill, examines the “toxic mix” of misinformation, disinformation, myths, alternative “facts,” and conspiracy theories that have proliferated online, leading to a lack of belief in shared truths, distrust in the legitimacy of science and expertise, and an erosion of our sense of community. He traces the current chaos to Section 230, a 1995 law allowing internet providers to police their own platforms and granting them immunity over content, no matter how ill informed or harmful. Although the intent of the law was “to maintain the robust nature of Internet communication,” Brill gives ample evidence to prove that, instead, it vastly undermined truth. In 2018, he and Gordon Crovitz founded NewsGuard to rate the trustworthiness of the most-visited sites, using criteria such as transparency of ownership and correction of mistakes. Although providers said that they supported the effort, Brill and Crovitz realized they had been naïve and clueless: “The problem,” Brill sees, “was their business plan,” which was to encourage engagement on their sites. Sensational, angry, polemic content drives engagement and therefore attracts advertising money. Because of the layers of people involved in placing ads, the companies advertised don’t know where their ads appear, so they end up supporting toxic sites that promote mis- and disinformation. While providers hired dedicated employees to staff their trust and safety teams, Brill found them to be “marginal mitigators” at best. Underscoring the acute need for reform, the author offers suggestions, including amending Section 230 to account for dangerous algorithms, ending online anonymity, directing the Federal Trade Commission to enforce providers’ contracts with users to protect them from harmful content, and bolstering online news and information literacy for K-12 students.
A brisk, well-informed, and urgent message.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780525658313
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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