Fact or fiction. Honest account or advertisement. Actual event or deceptive deepfake.
Today we don’t know what to believe—or whom to trust. The influence of institutions has eroded. Most leaders seem weak. Since these amazing broadcasting devices holstered in our pockets can share our every moment, we once expected that they’d bring us together. But technology often divides us. We’re nowhere closer to anything that feels like the truth.
Instead, authoritarians gain popularity, especially online. The aggrieved, angriest leaders command attention. They decry fake news and other systems as rigged against them. They demand retribution. Democracy deteriorates, once elections are questioned before they happen and are then challenged and protested afterwards, viciously and violently.
On January 6, 2021, a mob of Americans invaded the U.S. Capitol. Some of them were there due to conspiracy theories that had spread via social media. Stop The Steal was one of the fastest growing groups in Facebook’s history. That is to say, it was one of the fastest growing movements in human history, since billions of people had never been connected like this before. The company shut it down.
People kept organizing online anyway. On January 7, Mark Zuckerberg turned off the account of the sitting president of the United States, explaining that “the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.” The next day, Facebook hid any groups that used “Stop the Steal” in their name, making it seem like those groups simply did not exist. It was the first time the company had ever altered the search function to return a “null result.”
The same people who created the Stop The Steal group online, which set the stage for the rally on January 6, quite literally set the stage for the event near the White House that day: They were listed as the points of contact for the application to the National Park Service from “Women for America First.” They wanted to “demand transparency and protect election integrity,” so that afterwards “some participants may leave to attend rallies at the United States Capitol to hear the results of Congressional certification of the Electoral College count.”
The angry crowd marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and past the National Archives. They passed the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—they stormed right by “one of the most beautiful buildings in America, an expression of the American soul”—before the violent riot that afternoon. Their failed insurrection was an American trauma most of us have not fully reckoned with. It was not soulfully patriotic. It was a betrayal.
Some in the mob were there because they believed they were defending, not violating, our God-given rights and the rule of law. They were wrong about that.
Other rioters believed in “blood and soil,” in white nationalism, in “Jews will not replace us.”
Some were there because they wanted to lynch our leaders.
***
Not long ago, we had greater hope for liberty and justice for all—not just for ours here, but for everyone everywhere.
In 2009, people around the world heard a message from Egypt, from the first Black U.S. president. That was exactly 15 years ago. It was an altogether different time. Barack Obama had used new technologies to win; he’d also campaigned against the U.S. overreach of expensive and unwinnable wars in the Middle East. He gave people hope by promising change: “I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize a few months later, less than a year into his presidency. The committee pointed to the speech to justify their decision, yet when White House aides heard that news, even they didn’t believe it was real. They thought it was a prank.
In 2010, people gathered in Washington to make the vision of the New Beginning a reality at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship. Why host a summit about that? “Entrepreneurship[,] because throughout history, the market has been the most powerful force the world has ever known for creating opportunity and lifting people up out of poverty,” Obama told the crowd. “Entrepreneurship[,] because it's in our mutual economic interest. Trade between the United States and Muslim-majority countries has grown. But all this trade combined is still only about the same as our trade with one country, Mexico. So there’s so much more we can do together, in partnership, to foster opportunity and prosperity in all our countries.”
Many attendees left feeling inspired, both the entrepreneurs from around the world and those of us serving in the U.S. government. We knew that startups created all net new jobs at home, so the opportunities to connect U.S. venture capitalists to entrepreneurs solving problems in new markets seemed boundless. U.S. innovations earned us respect for all the right reasons, because it wasn’t just about new products being enjoyed by more people. It was about awakening originality, imagining possibilities, jumpstarting progress.
Until then, authoritarianism in numerous Muslim-majority countries had scorched away so many hopes for economic mobility and human rights. We wondered if, equipped with new technologies, people could now take risks and be more creative, pursuing their own ambitions, seeking shared prosperity, embracing a spirit of independence—not just one New Beginning but many. It was an entrepreneurial approach to the practice of foreign policy, where even if you failed, you’d learn, you’d refine and pivot, and you’d get better results.
As it turned out, these harsh economic and social conditions were dry kindling, and a Tunisian entrepreneur lit himself ablaze after authorities denied his permit and threatened his livelihood. As people demanded free and fair enterprise, free and fair elections, many around the world grew restless. What if the time had come? Would the technological revolution support the dreams for capitalism, for democracy? President Obama hoped so.
In 2011, after Egypt’s ruler fell, Obama proclaimed: “Above all, we saw a new generation emerge—a generation that uses their own creativity and talent and technology to call for a government that represented their hopes and not their fears; a government that is responsive to their boundless aspirations.” He added: “This is the power of human dignity, and it can never be denied. Egyptians have inspired us, and they’ve done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence.”
Maybe we should have paused, questioned, reflected, and discerned. What would have happened if we’d put down our phones and thought more deeply?
What if these technologies created more risks than we realized?
Did our devices increase our freedom or diminish it?
Was the faith Americans placed in government after 9/11, in fact, misplaced? Was it abused? Were we helped or hurt by the government’s broad new surveillance powers under the USA PATRIOT Act?
Did trusting our elected officials—when they told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction—erode confidence in our leaders, which would’ve been valuable to have later?
Did that contribute to people’s willingness to believe conspiracy theories about Obama being born in Africa or the election of 2020 being stolen, not lost?
Did technology improve our lives when it became possible that “a reality TV star might become president,” at a time when “if a third of our community questions the president’s origin—despite all evidence to the contrary—it’s a good bet that the other conspiracies have broader currency than we’d like.” (Those were the words of J.D. Vance in 2016.)
History or conspiracy. True story or fictitious spectacle. Real-life or reality TV.
It keeps getting harder to tell the difference. Doesn’t it?
***
To answer questions like these, we need honesty. When entrepreneurs fail, they quickly discover the value of admitting mistakes, so that they can learn from them and improve. Here’s one of mine: I should have spent more time examining what was really going on with Elizabeth Holmes, the CEO of Theranos, because the U.S. government should never have made her a presidential ambassador for global entrepreneurship and celebrated her as someone “committed to improving living conditions around the world for women, young girls and developing economies.” She was lying all along and never deserved the platform we gave her.
Likewise, awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize after just nine months in office was impulsive. People rightfully lost respect for yet another iconic institution as a result. “It would be like awarding the Oscar halfway through the movie,” one commentator rightly observed, “But we just don’t know how it ends.” Obama later admitted he wasn’t sure why he’d won. The Nobel committee’s secretary eventually regretted it, too. Seeking the truth is healthy. Admitting mistakes is good for us.
In that same spirit, we can acknowledge the utter strangeness of diplomatic plans to engage Muslims around the world—from places as diverse as Afghanistan, Indonesia, Turkey, and Yemen—in entrepreneurship programming. There’s a lot going on with that sentence. But, in complete candor, that would be just like the Chinese working with Americans, Russians, Brazilians, and Congolese (since they’re majority-Christian countries) around best practices for state-owned enterprises.
We can now admit it. That was an odd thing to do.
Humility helps. In this era where conspiracies are increasingly influential—enhanced by chaos and controversy and quickened by technology—we can each make choices to shed more light than heat. Truth-seeking, not pursuing power or prestige at any cost, is the way forward.
Capitalism and democracy benefit from transparency, decency, and accountability. Being truly honest—applied “with justice and force,” to return to Twain’s phrase—can reestablish the balance we need to strengthen our footing. That is how we move away from authoritarianism, steadily and surely, and return towards our founding principles.
Because this remains true: freedom and fairness, free and fair enterprise, and free and fair elections—yes, liberty and justice—are for all.
