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“The playing field of the social media informational environment is uneven, and it systematically benefits autocracies.” www.liberalcurrents.com/social-media...

something I'd add to this is that social media, by selecting for the most attention-grabbing content, simultaneously mass produces angry, paranoid, xenophobic morons (ie fascists) and undermines the foundation of public literacy itself

you have a situation where instead of swing voters making decisions informed at least partly by eg, the local newspaper they glance at occasionally, it's entirely delirious lunatics on TikTok

true but/and when newspapers were the only mass media there were many which catered to "the most attention-grabbing content producing angry, paranoid, xenophobic morons (ie fascists)"; Father Coughlin did the same on radio; and this was what Network was about. Not wrong but not monocausal!

yes, but I think there are key differences in that traditional publishers are legally liable for what they produce, and radio/TV creates a mass public in a way social media does not

I mean often bad mass publics! (e.g. Fox) And absolutely publishers are liable *today* though if you look at what was written in 18th-early 20th C. newspapers there was ... less concern. I do think social media is pretty bad! They are publishers with none of the restrictions or responsibility.

But we've faced a lot of these dynamics before and I don't think we are without a compass entirely.