The Gatekeepers

Ethnic conflict in Myanmar. A chemistry professor is killed in Ethiopia. A teenager dies in her bedroom in London. A mob storms the Capitol in Washington DC.

And that's the moment that catches Jamie Bartlett's eye. A few days after the riot, on January 9th 2021, the outgoing leader of the United States is suspended on social media. First Twitter, (renamed X), and then Facebook. A President silenced. It's a glimpse behind the curtain. For the first time millions of us can see the power of technology companies.

They can delete you. They can amplify you. They can change your life. Social media has conquered the world.

Jamie Bartlett follows the roots of this story back to San Francisco : the home of Big Tech, where he meets one of the early pioneers of social media who tells him about a strange hand bound book, passed around hippy communes in the summer of love, and how it turned the world upside down.

Archive Credits: Wolf of Wall Street, Paramount Pictures; Telecommunications Bill sign in, C-Span 1996; Bloomberg's TicTic 2019; Fox News 2020

Presenter: Jamie Bartlett

Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore

Music: Jeremy Warmsley

Researchers: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway

Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke.

A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

A hand-bound book cooked up in the summer of love inspires the pioneers of social media.

How did a strange handbound book passed around hippy communes in the summer of love influence the pioneers of social media? Jamie Bartlett travels to San Francisco to find out.

Ethnic conflict in Myanmar. A chemistry professor is killed in Ethiopia. A teenager dies in her bedroom in London. A mob storms the Capitol n Washington DC.

How did a strange handbound book passed around hippy communes in the summer of love influence the pioneers of social media? Jamie Bartlett traces to San Francisco to find out.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook is an instant hit on college campuses.

Soon it attracts the attention of Silicon Valley's most successful - but controversial - venture capitalist, Peter Thiel.

The company starts to scale up. But there's one problem - how is it going to make money?

Researchers: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway

Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore

Music: Jeremy Warmsley

Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke

A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4

Archive: Bloomberg Quicktake, October 2019; C-Span, Telecommunications Bill signing, Feb 1996; Hoover Institute, Decemeber 2009; Startup Academy, March 2018; Makers, December 2012;

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

A young tech CEO faces a dilemma. His solution will change the internet forever.

From the rubble of the dot com crash, an ambitious young Harvard student with a passion for hacking, sets up an exciting new website.

From the rubble of the dot com crash, an ambitious young Harvard student with a passion for hacking and an eye on the future, sets up an exciting new website.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook is an instant success on college campuses.

Soon it's attracts the attention of Silicon Valley's most successful - but controversial - venture capitalists, Peter Thiel.

The company starts to scale up. But there's one problem - how is it going to pay for it?

Presenter: Jamie Bartlett

A young tech CEO faces a dilemma. The solution will change the internet forever.

Contributors: Roger McNamee, author of Zucked: Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe; journalist Owen Thomas; Eric Jackson, author of The Paypal Wars; Jeff Hammerbacher; Anil Dash, tech entrepreneur.

Archive: Bloomberg Quicktake, October 2019; C-Span, Telecommunications Bill signing, Feb 1996; Hoover Institute, Decemeber 2009; Startup Academy, March 2018; Makers, December 2012.

Arab Spring, Barack Obama – both fuelled by social media - make the possibilities feel limitless.

But, just as the dream to connect everyone is being realised - at the height of technological optimism - everything starts to fall apart.

Sound Designer: Eloise Whitmore

Mix: Gav Murchie

Composer: Jeremy Warmsley

Executive Producer: Peter McManus + Heather Kane-Darling

Research: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway

Commissioned by Dan Clarke

Archive: C-NET Jan 2007; The Obama White House Archive, April 2011; C-Span, December 2008; C-Span 1996.

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

At the high point of technological optimism, the vision starts to disintegrate.

The high point of technological optimism. Arab Spring, Barack Obama. Social media seems like it's transforming everything. But then, it all starts to crumble.

Arab Spring, Barack Obama: the possibilities feel limitless.

But, just as the dream is being realised - at the height of technological optimism - the dream to connect everyone and everything starts to fall apart.

At the high point of technological optimism, it all starts to crumble.

The high point of technological optimism. Arab Spring, Barack Obama. Social media is transforming everything. But then, it all starts to crumble.

In Manila, Maria Ressa - the editor of online news site, Rappler - discovers a sock puppet network of social media accounts, all pushing for the election of a strong leader. Someone like Rodrigo Duterte. Maria is suspicious. She makes an urgent call to Facebook.

In Veles, in Macedonia, a young man called 'Marco' starts writing fake articles and posting them online. Very soon they're being read by millions of people around the globe and he's making huge sums of money.

The online ecosystem is under attack.

Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore

Composer: Jeremy Warmsley

Exec: Peter McManus

Researcher: Juliet Conway and Elizabeth Ann Duffy

Commissioned by Dan Clarke

Archive: BBC News, AP Archive, Bloomberg Television, CNN

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

In the run up to the 2016 elections, journalists in America and Philippines try to raise the alarm: something strange is going on online. Social media is under attack.

In 2016, Instagram introduced a new way of looking at content: the non-chronological feed.

Now, instead of seeing what your friends were posting in the order they were posting it, an algorithm brought you stuff based on search history, likes, and interactions.

That's how tech engineers saw things back then - not just at Instagram, but at Pinterest, and other platforms too - if you engage with something, that must mean you want more of it.

Ian Russell believes that this algorithmic change may have altered the course of his 14 year old daughter Molly's life.

Presenter: Jamie Bartlett

Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore

Composer: Jeremy Warmsley

Execuitve Producer: Peter McManus

Commissioner: Dan Clarke

A BBC Scotland Production for Radio 4.

If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, including urgent support, a list of organisations that can help is available at BBC.co.uk/actionline, or you can call for free to hear recorded information on 0800 066 066.

A change to an algorithm in 2016 has huge consequences.

This is the story of a 14-year-old girl and how an innocuous decision taken in Silicon Valley may have changed her life.

Archive: 'Instagram implements big changes to users' feed, ditches chronologixal content' DT Daily; March 16th 2016. US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Nov 7th 2023

If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, including urgent support, a list of organisations that can help is available at BBC.co.uk/actionline.

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

After political outcry over Russian interference in the 2016 election and fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, tech leaders have a decision to make.

They need to come up with ways of making their platforms safer.

One route is a radical overhaul of the entire business model. The other is the biggest digital clean-up operation ever attempted, spanning hundreds of langauges and countries.

Which path will they take?

Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore

Composer: Jeremy Warmsley

Commissioned by Dan Clarke

A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4.

Archive: C-Net, April 2018; CBS News, 2020; Tucker Carlson on Fox News; BBC News 2021; EU Debates Tv, 2021

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

Social media CEOs stand at a crossroads. Will they make their platforms safer?

The founders of early social media platforms wanted to overthrow the gatekeepers. But now they're becoming them.

After political outcry over Russian interference in the 2016 election and fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, these tech leaders have a decision to make. They need to come up with ways of making their platforms safer.

One option is a radical overhaul of the entire business model. Another option is the biggest digital clean-up operation ever attempted, spanning hundreds of languages and countries.

Which road will they take?

Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore

Composer: Jeremy Warmsley

Commissioned by Dan Clarke

A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4.

Archive:

Social media CEOs have reached a crossroads. Will they make their platforms safer?

Moderating online content means now the tech CEOs are no longer overthrowing the gatekeepers, they're becoming them.

In 2018, the CEOs of our most popular social media companies are standing at a crossroad.

After political outcry over Russian interference in the 2016 election and fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, tech leaders have a decision to make.

One route is a radical overhaul of the entire business model. The other is the biggest digital clean-up operation ever attempted, spanning hundreds of langauges and countries.

Which path will they take?

Archive: C-Net, April 2018; CBS News, 2020; Tucker Carlson on Fox News; BBC News 2021; EU Debates Tv, 2021

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

Social media CEOs stand at a crossroads. Will they make their platforms safer?

The founders of early social media platforms wanted to overthrow the gatekeepers. But now they're becoming them.

The young academic is seeking asylum in the States following the murder of his father in Ethiopia in 2021.

In December 2022, Abrham became the lead complainant in a $2 billion lawsuit against Meta. Abrham believes that company is partly responsible for the death of his dad - a renowned chemistry professor - who was slandered and doxxed on Facebook, before being shot outside his home.

Abrham says he reported the posts multiple times but they were not taken down, until eight days after the killing.

Jamie meets the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who tells him that her decision to leak Meta's internal documents was driven by grave concerns about the way Meta operates in the Global South.

Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore

Composer: Jeremy Warmsley

Senior Producer: Peter McManus

Commissioned by Dan Clarke for BBC Radio 4.

Archive: C:Span, October 2021

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

A professor is murdered in Ethiopia. His son believes that Meta is partly responsible.

In Ethiopia, a professor is murdered after being slandered and doxxed on Facebook. His son brings a multi-billion dollar case against Meta. The ruling could change the internet.

The coroner is due to conclude the Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of Ian's daughter, Molly.

As Ian walks into the court room, he feels relief - after five years it's almost over.

Coroner Andrew Walker finds that Molly '...died from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content.

The finding has been called a global first. The influence of social media contributed to the death of a child.

In San Francisco, around the same time as the Inquiry concludes, a strange story is unfolding inside Twitter HQ.

Elon Musk had recently bought the company and decided to share internal documents with a hand-picked group of journalists. One of those journalists suspects these documents show collusion between tech platforms and the US government.

Social media companies are attracting a lot of heat; from both the political left and right. Politicians and civil groups want them to be regulated; to reign in their power. There is even talk of repealing section 230 - the American law which created modern social media.

In this final episode Jamie Bartlett asks if Silicon Valley's radical experiment is about to implode? And if the online world is chaotic just now, what will advances in artificial intelligence mean for us all?

Sound design: Eloise Whitmore

Senior Producer: Peter McManus

Composer: Jeremy Warmsley

Commissioned by Dan Clarke

A BBC Scotland Production

Archive credits: BBC News, September 2022; C-Span

New episodes released on Mondays. If you're in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: BBC.in/3Ui661u

Is Silicon Valley's radical experiment to connect the world about to implode?

After 20 years, is Silicon Valley's radical experiment to connect the world about to implode?

On 30th September 2022 a coroner in London finds that Molly Russell '...died from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content.

The finding is a global first. Social media is ruled to have contributed to the death of a child.

In San Francisco, around the same time, a strange story is unfolding inside Twitter HQ.

Ever since Donald Trump's account was suspended on Twitter, tensions have been building around what is and isn't allowed on platforms.

Elon Musk shares internal staff documents with a hand-picked group of journalists. One of those journalists suspects these documents show collusion between tech platforms and the US government.

Politicians and civil groups on both the left and right from across the world, want the power and influence of these companies to be reigned in.

There's even talk of repealing section 230 - the law that created modern social media.

In this final episode, Jamie Bartlett asks if Silicon Valley's radical experiment is about to implode? And if the online world is chaotic now, what will advances in artificial intelligence mean for us all?

Presenter: Jamie Bartlett

Reading by John Lightbody

Archive credits: BBC News, September 2022; CNN, 2022; C-Span, Jan 2024; BBC Archive, 1967

If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, a list of organisations that can help is available at BBC.co.uk/actionline