Obama addresses Glasgow crowd

Barack Obama spoke to twelve thousand one hundred fifty people at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow in conversation with British journalist Sathnam Sanghera, part of three UK speaking dates.

Platforms shifted to anger and fear

The forty-fourth president said online platforms have shifted in recent years to focus on content that stokes anger and fear, but he believes a drift to extremism is not inevitable.

Brain drawn to negative emotions

Obama said the reptilian side of human brains gets attracted to anger, fear, resentment and the sense that someone is out to get you, so social media and information systems are built around that.

“It turns out that the reptilian side of our brain really gets attracted to anger, fear, resentment and the sense that someone is out to get you.”

Post-war regulation as model

After World War Two, the US federal government and Europe set up rules because they had seen what propaganda could do in the hands of someone like Hitler, but the world has not chosen to…

“We can see how big lies and misinformation can distort and enrage and incite violence. So we're going to hold these folks responsible.”

Balance between speech and rules

The sixty-five-year-old said a critical balance must be struck between free speech and regulation, and the world needs new mechanisms and institutions to allow rigorous debate while helping people sort out basic facts.

AI will worsen the problem

Obama said he feared artificial intelligence could make it harder to distinguish between what is true and what is not, something he believes will make democracy hard to function and young people feel discouraged.

Hope is an active choice

Obama said he still believes in Martin Luther King Junior's phrase about the moral universe bending towards justice, and that hope is an active almost theological choice people must make about facing their finite time…