[coldtea]

If the "medium is the message" (that is, the medium dominates and enforces its norms over everything transmitted, e.g. by forcing people to echo bubbles, polarization, and centralized control by its very design regardless of what content is transmitted) then the messenger is the culprit -- and we should shoot the messenger.

[buboard]

the phrase 'dont shoot the messenger' exists for a reason. (the messenger has always shaped the message, even when it was a runner man)

[coldtea]

>the phrase 'dont shoot the messenger' exists for a reason

And I've just argued why the reason is faulty, and we shouldn't hold it as true for modern media. I'd expect a counter-argument on that, not a reminder that it exists for a reason (as if I hadn't already considered it).

>the messenger has always shaped the message, even when it was a runner man

It's a matter of degree: the degree with which TV at the time of McLuhan, and now social media shape the message, is nothing like the degree previous "messengers" did it...

[buboard]

> not a reminder that it exists for a reason

I really don't want to reitarate what people a lot smarter than me have written.

It's not different this time - the media have changed, but so have the Kings. No matter how many messengers they beheaded , the problems that Kings had did not go away. No matter how many people we deplatform, the problems of modern Democracy won't go away either. To me it seems people are going through a classic crisis of misattributing the blame: Modern political systems like democracy are ill-adapted for an increasingly individualistic, globalized world, and the problem won't go away after they regulate the media. (BTW i can't think of any case where shooting the messenger/media worked in the the long term in the past)