[ryanhuff]

If I took what Facebook presents to me through my feed as a news source to influence my POV, I might believe that Obama is a secret Muslim, or that Trump was done away with years ago, and is instead an alien, or that Helen Hunt, the actress, is involved in international child trafficking, or perhaps that COVID-19 was put in place to control the world's population. In my experience, all Facebook does is reveal and feed upon people's worst needs, desires, fears. I'll take the NY Times over this any day of the week.

[catalogia]

It's not like the NYTs doesn't have a history of spreading unfounded 'conspiracy theories' too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_aluminum_tubes#September...

In terms of damage done to society, I think all the examples you list combined still pale in comparison to that single example.

[ryanhuff]

Perhaps. The NYT is one source published daily. Facebook has millions of conversations happening among friends and loose connections happening daily about supposed conspiracy theories. I propose that the scale that results from the viral nature of this distribution dwarfs what the NYT could possibly do.