The brilliant Naomi Klein joined Penguin to answer some big questions on the reality-distorting algorithms, social media regulation and the true threat of AI.

When Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn’t.

She started to find herself grappling with a distorted sense of reality, becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media, the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity – all we have to meet the world – so unstable?

The result of these musings is her new book Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World.

Klein decided to follow her double into a bizarre, uncanny mirror world: one of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and demagogue hucksters, where soft-focus wellness influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of protecting ‘the children’).

In doing so, she lifts the lid on our own culture during this surreal moment in history.

Watch the video:

 

 

Categories International Non-fiction

Tags Doppelganger Naomi Klein New books New releases Penguin Random House SA Videos