[whatshisface]

The newspaper + money + printing costs system has done that for generations. If you want engaging information to stop being spread more than less-engaging information, then you're going to have to come up with a way to stop more engaging newspapers from printing more copies than less-engaging ones.

[whakim]

Yes, newspapers have been printing/selling the equivalent of clickbait and "fake news" for as long as newspapers have been around. People like this and it gets a lot of eyeballs. Newspapers like USA Today/New York Post/Daily Mail etc. do this to at least some degree and do pretty well for it.

That being said, many of the top-circulating newspapers[1] don't trade on simply reporting the "most-engaging" information. People read the WSJ or NYTimes because they're trustworthy and tend to have a high standard of journalistic integrity, deeply investigate issues and challenge powerful interests. (If you don't believe that's true you probably don't read the WSJ or NYTimes, which makes my point for me...)

Facebook and social media in general does the former, not the latter. And then combines it with algorithms that target content at those most likely to be engaged by it, leading to a cesspool of polarization, echo chambers, and inflammatory arguments.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unit...

[dannyr]

There is a big difference between a newspaper and Facebook (with over a billion users) spreading misinformation.

This is like comparing a match stick to jet fuel.

[dmix]

As long as you never click on a comments button or scroll down on any page, which is basically what Facebook is in reverse.

The comment sections on NYT (apparently the "good" paper) is one of the worst places on the internet. Yet I'm totally okay with it existing because I understand stupid people exist, no matter how much (highly selective) censorship we allow to exist.

Not to mention the serious decline in quality of actual NYT content which seems to select heavily for this commenting audience. I've been reading them for well over a decade and the decline is obvious and full of misinformation daily. There's no winning this fight through letting some random minimum wage moderator FB or Twitter hires, with zero appeals process, or any transparency, and obvious biases, deleting a few articles or comments that offend the type of people who live in the bay area or whatever American city they hire in.

[dannyr]

Except that Facebook use algorithms to promote posts to its billion users.

[whatshisface]

The comparison is between Facebook and the entire system of market pressure acting on thousands of newspapers, not between Facebook and one newspaper.