Extra: The DIGITAL FLOOD that drowns democracy – Nick Cohen talks to Peter Pomerantsev

<p>“Peter explains better than anyone I know the new world of Putinesque, Trumpian propaganda.” In a weekend bonus, Nick Cohen of <em>The Observer</em> talks to <strong>Peter Pomerantsev</strong>, author of <a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Peter-Pomerantsev/This-Is-Not-Propaganda--Adventures-in-the-War-Against-Reality/24892316" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>This Is Not Propaganda : Adventures in the War Against Reality</em></a>, about how demagogues warp free speech into a weapon against democracy.</p><p><br></p><p>Why is the modern information battle less of a New Cold War and more a New Thirty Years War? Do we even understand the devil’s bargain that tech giants are offering? We can have perfect lives and perfect homes –&nbsp;as long as we don’t mind giving up our information and our freedoms.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><ul><li><em>“Every aspect of freedom of speech has been used against us, to swamp the world and drown out the truth”</em></li><li><em>“However much we’d like to blame these pathologies on Mark Zuckerberg, we can’t.”</em></li><li><em>“It’s no longer about censorship, it’s about overloading democracies with trolls, bots and conspiracies…&nbsp;it’s about swamping us with information”</em></li><li><em>“When you have an economy based on likes and shares, that’s going to reinforce tribal identities”</em></li><li><em>“Extremism is about demonising the other.&nbsp;What we’re seeing is something eternal”</em></li></ul><p><br></p><p><em>Presented by Nick Cohen. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. </em><strong><em>THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production</em></strong></p> &#10;&nbsp;<br /><hr><p style='color: grey; font - size: 0.75em; '>See <a style='color: grey; ' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.</p>