[ecocentrik]

The loudest minorities have owned media outlets and been major political contributors. Dictators and plutocrats both have the same need to control the narrative and mute counter-narratives that challenge their authority.

When most people complain about social media they use their previous relationship to media as a benchmark for normality but centrally controlled media never really existed and is no longer strictly possible. Cheap media is always going to be attractive to cranks. Years ago it was pamphlets, AM radio, tabloids and cable news, now it's social media and email campaigns (yes, they still exist). Our relationship to media keeps changing and people learn to deal with the political discourse, disinformation and outright crankery being amplified by these platforms the same way they learned not to pick up an issue of the National Enquirer and tune out the nuts on AM radio.