[bxk1]

Chomsky did a lot of work to show that it's not optimizing for profits or some subconscious biases of people influencing press, but very deliberate power structure pushing specific censorship, propaganda, it's all very conscious effort. Private ownership here helps a lot of course, not because of profits, but because owners are able to push policies and narratives top down.

[TeMPOraL]

I don't buy conscious effort all that much. It's reassuring to believe there are some evil actors in control over the narrative. Such people could be identified, and eventually removed from their positions of influence. It's much scarier, and much closer to the truth, that we're dealing with a system of incentives that's stronger than any individual or group. We're not being led astray by the few with an agenda; we're all just flowing down the optimization gradient.