There's a similar theme running in his "Fall; or Dodge in Hell" book where a fake nuclear attack and subsequent social media storm leads to a collapse of the in

There's a similar theme running in his "Fall; or Dodge in Hell" book where a fake nuclear attack and subsequent social media storm leads to a collapse of the internet and the emergence of its replacement based on human or automated editors filtering out all the "crap". This then leads to confirmation bubbles where people believe whatever they want to believe because their edit streams lock them into whatever they want to hear. Ku clux klan like militias taking control of rural parts of "Ameristan" and people keep on remembering the victims of a nuclear attack that never happened. He published that book just before the first Trump administration. A lot of the stuff that probably seemed a bit overly dramatic at the time has actually happened. People disagreeing about the last election outcome would be a prime example of some alternate truth that seems hard to weed out. And a lot of that is of course fueled by quite intentional media coverage sponsored by the likes of North Korea, Russia, and China who have definitely been trying to militarize misinformation for quite some time and run bots on a large scale on social media platforms. As a social commentary, both books are spot on. Anathem is probably my favorite NS novel though I love them all. Also don't miss out on the definition of Bullshytt. Classic Neal Stephenson.