A pre-Newtonian moment

“Social media is in a pre-Newtonian moment, where we all understand that it works, but not how it works,” Mr. Systrom told me, comparing this moment in the tech world to the time before man could explain gravity. “There are certain rules that govern it and we have to make it our priority to understand the rules, or we cannot control it.”

A Wise Man Leaves Facebook: Kevin Systrom, a founder of Instagram, wasn’t a “team player.” That was exactly what the company needed, by Kara Swisher, New York Times, 27 September 2018

Leo Laporte: Maybe what he's thinking is Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook to connect and everything like that. It was used against us in our elections by the Russians particularly to convince people not to vote or to stay at home mostly or to vote for somebody in particular. To me that was the come-to-Jesus moment where somebody figured out how to use social media in a very powerful way and they understood it but Zuckerberg did not and it took Facebook off guard, and at first they denied it even happened. Finally of late they've admitted yeah that's what happened.

Larry Magid: I think part of the problem for consumers is that most of us don't know how it works. We know that there are algorithms…

Leo Laporte: But do you think Zuck [Mark Zuckerberg] does is the question?

Larry Magid: That's what I'm saying, I assume that Zuck does, but maybe he doesn't fully understand it.

This Week in Tech (TWIT) 606, 19 March 2019, [at 43:51]