The world is seemingly in crisis, with social and political upheaval having dominated the news agenda for several years. Much of the blame for this is laid at the feet of the social media giants, notably Facebook and Twitter, for creating platforms that fragment society and encourage extremism.

In the opening episode of Season Five of the Digital Download Podcast, I talk to digital technologist and former manager of the BBC's DigiLab Euan Semple about the current social media environment and what the future looks like. We discuss how much of the responsibility to improve things lies with the social networks, and how much of that lies squarely at the feet of us, the people who use it.

Here's what is discussed in this episode:

The development of online conversation over the last ten years
How the internet is a mirror of humanity
Whether social media exacerbates the worst in people
Whether regulation would have any impact on social media behaviour
Why the distinction between on and offline life is irrelevant
How technology has evolved too fast for humanity to adapt to the responsibilities it necessitates
Why we have to be responsible not only for what we pay attention to online, but also what we respond to
How the internet is full of people telling others what to think or believe or do
Whether social media does more harm than good
How much responsibility communicators, marketers and organisation have
Why the mechanisms of marketing and social algorithms are deeply flawed



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