[probably_wrong]

I agree that politicians in a good chunk of Europe have let their constituents down one one too many times, that the breach has gotten too wide and that protest voting makes perfect sense for a lot of people. But two things can be right at the same time: I also believe it's true that dictators are sabotaging democracies everywhere and that social networks (not just TikTok) are both addictive and a major source of misinformation.

I'm constantly reminded of this bit from [1] (which is a great read):

> Later, when I ask Chase whether he’s ever heard about the QAnon conspiracy, he says no, but explains that the video must be legit because “it’s gotten deleted multiple times off the internet, which is insane.” Epistemologically, this is where we are as a country: when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness.

I certainly want more politicians to be afraid of the people they claim to represent, but I also want social networks to stop throwing their hands in the air and pretend they're not responsible for spreading misinformation at an unprecedent scale.

[1] https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-hous...