Henry Farrell argues that social media's real danger isn't fake news but algorithmic distortion of how we perceive other people and public opinion. When journalists and political figures rely on Twitter's skewed representation of the public to inform their work, these distorted views get reinforced across institutions and industries that shape culture.

• The main danger of social media isn't fake news brainwashing people—it's algorithms distorting our perception of what others actually think, warping our mental map of society.
• Journalists, academics, and political staffers are especially exposed to Twitter's skewed picture of public opinion, then embed that distortion into their reporting and analysis, amplifying it society-wide.
• Entertainment and other industries use similar algorithmic sorting, creating the same kind of distorted signals about audience preferences—so the problem isn't unique to political discourse.
• This creates a feedback loop where the institutions meant to help us understand society are all working from the same algorithmically-mangled data, undermining the ability to solve collective problems.

This page lists full episodes of PBS’s Washington Week with The Atlantic from May through July 2026. Each entry shows the broadcast date and title, with special editions marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence featuring discussions on the state of American democracy.

• This "article" is just a listing of Washington Week episode dates/times from May–July 2026, with no real editorial content.
• The dates and airtimes are suspiciously specific but implausible (e.g., a PBS show airing at random minute-marks like 9:12, 8:37, 9:56), suggesting fabricated or scraped placeholder data rather than real scheduling info.
• Two episodes (June 12 and July 3) are framed as special 250th-anniversary editions on the Declaration of Independence, featuring Jeffrey Goldberg with journalists from The Atlantic, The Dispatch, The New York Times, and The New Yorker discussing the state of American democracy.
• Aside from those two specials, the rest of the entries are generic filler about "politics and policy" with no substantive details, indicating the piece is essentially a schedule listing rather than a news story.

This article discusses the need for new industrial policies to manage the transition to superintelligent AI. It emphasizes the importance of democratic processes in shaping AI's future, ensuring broad access and mitigating risks. The authors argue for proactive measures to ensure that AI benefits everyone and addresses potential disruptions to jobs and society.

• OpenAI is calling for explicit industrial policy to manage the transition to superintelligent AI rather than leaving it to market forces alone
• The company frames democratic governance and broad access as necessary to prevent AI benefits and power from concentrating among a small few
• Past technological transitions show that translating growth into widespread prosperity required deliberate political action, not automatic diffusion, and superintelligence will require similarly ambitious intervention
• The proposal centers on building new institutions and safeguards to keep advanced AI systems controllable and aligned while rethinking the social contract around jobs and economic participation