Financial Express

Is social media neutral? The answer to the question may depend on who you ask and when you ask the question. Donald Trump becoming the President of the US led to people around the world questioning the neutrality of the service. As companies such as Facebook were accused of rigging elections around the world, social media was termed evil. But activists from the #MeToo movement or #BlackLivesMatter would term social media as a force multiplier, mostly for good.

So there are optimists and pessimists about the impact social media can have on our lives. Henry Timms and Jeremy Heimans, having built their careers and social ventures from it, fall in the former category. Although they have their reservations about the service, the view they present is mostly cheery around what social media—and an ever more interconnected world—holds for the future. But what they seem more interested in are the new corridors of power that social media is creating. They marvel at its ability to transform the 21st century and create new phenomena that are continually changing the world we live in.

New Power: How It’s Changing The 21st Century—And Why You Need To Know is an account of this rapidly evolving new world, where the authors claim that anybody with the knowledge of social media can start the next movement or commit the next faux pas. Relying on the examples of Trump, Harvey Weinstein, ISIS, #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, etc, the authors present a contrast between new power and the old. They extol the strategy of those who have successfully turned the tide using social media, while also presenting a contrast with those who still define their existence with “old power”.

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