[khazhoux]

> Social media was weaponized and turned into a tool that manipulates people's view of the reality

I really dislike this argument. It shifts responsibility from the voters to evil nebulous puppet-masters. I reject that. At some point, you have to accept that people can think and make decisions for themselves.

[nicce]

> At some point, you have to accept that people can think and make decisions for themselves.

And then we have to accept that this world is what we want and deserve, and this dicussion goes in cycles.

[basementcat]

Is it reasonable that social media influencers may be assigned some degree of credit? After all they are generally effective at selling products.

I also agree that people have responsibility for their actions. For example, it has been personally sobering to observe some friends and colleagues agree that defunding PEPFAR and putting 20 million lives at risk was morally the right thing to do.

[takeda]

Yeah. Everyone is convinced ads don't work on them, yet somehow it is a trillion dollar industry.

Perhaps you are lucky and don't have anyone in your family affected by disinformation.

I have family members that no longer watch TV, listen radio, read news papers. All "news" they are getting is from sources that also tell them that all other sources lie.

They live in complete different reality that it is a distorted mirror of actual reality.