[tqi]

> Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have grown beyond making connections and delivering entertainment into places people trust to keep themselves informed

And the NYT, MSNBC, Foxnews, Verge et al have grown beyond places people trust to keep themselves informed into delivering entertainment, going back to the early 2000s with 24 hour cable news and talking heads shows.

[NoZebra120vClip]

Oh I think it goes further back than that. Read a turn-of-the-20th century newspaper for some sensational headlines and muckracking. Perhaps it's always been this way. "Informing the public" via news is inseparable from gossip and campfire tales.

[extragood]

The lawsuit against Fox by Dominion made it clear to me that they exist to sell ads to their viewership by telling them what they want to hear, regardless of facts. I have no doubt that there's a long-standing legacy of that amongst many news groups, or maybe even most of them, but I'm not aware of a bigger manipulation of the American public

[brightlancer]

Absolutely. Ben Franklin regularly passed fictional stories off as fact in his newspapers. It has always been thus.