The Twittering Machine

In surrealist artist Paul Klee’s __The Twittering Machine__, the bird-song of a diabolical machine acts as bait to lure humankind into a pit of damnation. Leading political writer and broadcaster Richard Seymour, author of __Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics__, argues that this is a chilling metaphor for our relationship with social media. Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience.Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users, developers, security experts and others, Seymour probes the human side of the machine, asking what we’re getting out of it, and what we’re getting into. __This is a story about desire and violence, as well as writing. It is also a story about what we might be writing ourselves into, culturally and politically. It is not an authoritative accout: that is impossible this early in the evolution of a radically new technopolitical system. This book is an attempt, as much as anything else, to work out a new langauge for thinking about what is coming into being . . .__ 'Richard Seymour has a brilliant mind and a compelling style. Everything he writes is worth reading.' – Gary Younge, Editor-at-Large, __Guardian__ 'A brilliant, urgent, game-changing intervention.' – China Miéville, author of __October: The Story of the Russian Revolution__ 'A brilliant and provocative reassessment of a technology that has become apparently indispensable to modern life.' – Daniel Trilling, editor of __New Humanist__ and author of __Lights in the Distance__ 'If you really want to set yourself free you should read a book - preferably this one.' – __Observer__, __Book of the Week__ 'A thrilling demonstration of what [resistance] can look like ... everyone should read it.' – __Guardian__ 'Clever, and alarming ... a first tentative vision of what a neo-luddite response to our predicament might look like.' – __Spectator__ 'Seymour's compulsively argued book may just be the intervention we all need.' – __Tatler.com__ **Richard Seymour** is a writer and broadcaster and the author of numerous books about politics, including __The Liberal Defence of Murder__ (Verso, 2008), __Against Austerity__ (2014), __Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics__ (Verso, 2016) and __The Twittering Machine__ (The Indigo Press, 2019). His writing appears in the __Guardian__, __Jacobin__, the __London Review of Books__, the __New York Times__ and __Prospect__. He lives in London. ISBN : 9781911648031Formats : This function can be used only in the GUI A brilliant probe into the political and psychological effects of our changing relationship with social media Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience. The Twittering Machine is an unflinching view into the calamities of digital life: the circus of online trolling, flourishing alt-right subcultures, pervasive corporate surveillance, and the virtual data mines of Facebook and Google where we spend considerable portions of our free time. In this polemical tour de force, Richard Seymour shows how the digital world is changing the ways we speak, write, and think. Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users, developers, security experts and others, Seymour probes the human side of the machine, asking what were getting out of it, and what were getting into. Social media held out the promise that we could make our own historyto what extent did we choose the nightmare that it has become? 'If you really want to set yourself free, you should read a book - preferably this one.'Observer In surrealist artist Paul Klee's The Twittering Machine, the bird-song of a diabolical machine acts as bait to lure humankind into a pit of damnation. Leading political writer and broadcaster Richard Seymour argues that this is a chilling metaphor for relationship with social media. Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. Like drug addicts, we are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience.Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and interviews with users, developers, security experts and others, Seymour probes the human side of this machine, asking what we're getting out of it, and what we're getting into. Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and interviews with people on both the user and development ends of social media, political writer and broadcaster Richard Seymour argues that the contemporary attitude to social media has taken a dark turn. Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience. Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users, developers, security experts and others, Seymour probes the human side of the machine, asking what we're getting out of it, and what we're getting into In artist Paul Klee’s The Twittering Machine, the bird-song of a diabolical machine acts as bait to lure humankind into a pit of damnation. Richard Seymour argues that this is a chilling metaphor for our fixation with social media. His new book probes the human side of the machine, asking what we’re getting out of it, and what we’re getting into.