Bill Maher ends every episode of his HBO show Real Time with a monologue. The topics are usually political. This was not the case, however, on May 12, 2017, when Maher looked into the camera and said:
The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your “likes” is the new smoking.
The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your “likes” is the new smoking.
“There’s always this narrative that technology’s neutral. And it’s up to us to choose how we use it. This is just not true—”“Technology is not neutral?”“It’s not neutral. They want you to use it in particular ways and for long periods of time. Because that’s how they make their money.”
Bill Maher, for his part, thought this interview seemed familiar. After playing a clip of the Harris interview for his HBO audience, Maher quips: “Where have I heard this before?” He then cuts to Mike Wallace’s famous 1995 interview with Jeffrey Wigand—the whistleblower who confirmed for the world what most already suspected: that the big tobacco companies engineered cigarettes to be more addictive.
“Philip Morris just wanted your lungs,” Maher concludes. “The App Store wants your soul.”
- Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, by Cal Newport
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