[coldtea]

>It seems crazy to say but I think it may all boil down to a massive influx of inexperienced readers.

Not that crazy. In fact, the idea about "inexperienced readers" becoming a nuisance has been around since the dawn of writing.

In fact even someone as old as Plato warned us about this, in parable form, when writing was introduced:

https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/#:~:text=%E2....

[a123b456c]

I agree it's not crazy. To me the best explanation is that Facebook introduced many inexperienced people to political topics, and they had trouble distinguishing fact from fiction. Someone told me something similar happened when radio first got popular. Hopefully our societies will get better at filtering information as these technologies mature.

[thethought]

>>> Facebook introduced .. ppl to xyz topics ..

I possibly belong to this set. Could it be that this goes way back when people got hold of religous text and learn to read it and discuss about it?

[dorchadas]

It actually does make me wonder if we can see a connection between what's happening now and what happened when Protestant Christianity started spreading with the whole "priesthood of the believer" deal where everyone can read the Bible in whatever translation and interpret it just as well, supposedly, as those who are trained in Greek/Hebrew/Latin and actually studied the historical context of it. Seems very similar, in some ways, on a rough look.