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by philwelch 2775 days ago
> Scale matters.

Newspapers already had sufficient scale to start major wars, prop up and/or tear down governments, etc. And, while we may blame those newspapers, should we also blame the companies that manufacture printing presses? Direct mail can be used for similar things; should we blame the USPS?
2 comments
wu-ikkyu 2775 days ago
Despite your argument being a false analogy, a bit of a strawman, and a non sequitur -- many historians have indeed chronicled the violent societal effects of the invention of the printing press:

"The effect of the discovery of printing was evident in the savage religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Application of power to communication industries hastened the consolidation of vernaculars, the rise of nationalism, revolution, and new outbreaks of savagery in the twentieth century."

-Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication

See also:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy

link
pm90 2775 days ago
We do blame newspapers for starting wars though. At least we did back when they did so. We do hold the mainstream media as accountable for its actions.

You seem to be either (intentionally or for the sake of argument) excluding a lot of relevant context in your arguments to make Facebook look similar to a printing press.

link