[grabbalacious]

Good point. Although I think it tends to be a consensus among an influential minority of the populace rather than society as a whole.

[philwelch]

Mob rule is never actually mob rule, there's a complicated relationship between the mob and the demagogues who alternately control the mob while also being controlled by it.

[lowdose]

Controlled opposition while shuffling the real dirty jobs on them and maintaining plausible deniability.

[wwright]

That is fair, but realistically, I think that’s every social consensus… and the implications are much more far reaching than social media platforms :-)

[krapp]

Every motive factor in "society" is a consensus among an influential minority rather than the whole. Society is not a unified entity, nor are its boundaries even strongly defined, so there cannot be a consensus among a "whole" which doesn't exist.

[grabbalacious]

Well, that's OK, provided we're honest about what it is, e.g. we don't use media to create the illusion of a majority consensus where none exists.