Framed: A Villain's Perspective on Social Media

This is the Big Tech polemic that wasn't supposed to be written. Tim O'Hearn is a lovable rogue who spent his early twenties gaining millions of followers for his clients while fighting anti-botting measures on social networks. After losing the battle, he engineered addictive technology systems at a social media startup that eventually imploded.

Framed isn't a research project. It's a first-person account of growing up with the internet, learning how to program, and earning money from the dark side of social media. It fondly recalls early Web 2.0 and reintroduces a forgotten practice from Myspace that laid the groundwork for modern fame seeking. It analyzes the tangled ecosystem of businesses dependent on social media platforms and the mystifying exercises of software companies setting rules and actually enforcing them.

The book pushes opinions on today's hottest topics: influencers, verification, algorithms, filter bubbles, botnets, screen addiction, fake love, spam, shadowbans, black hat marketing, deplatforming, journalism and "news" feeds, the dead internet theory, video game cheating, and why people are still buying fake followers.

And-getting banned. Read Framed while you still can.