Discussion
"But no one will ever know that the factory is polluting the water. The factory is owned by David Dollars and his brother Bingsbly Dollars owns both of the town newspapers!"
If you saw this in a movie or read it in a book you'd understand the plot point. Conflict of interest, control of information. Or do I need to explain "You see, Bingsbly will want to help his brother stay rich and so he won't publish any unflattering stories about the factory."
We get it, right??
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IMHO a great primer about all of this and why it is the way it is can be found in the book Nudge, by R Thaler & C Sunstein.
Interestingly the authors of the book discuss the concept of how advocates can use the sociological principles of "nudging" people in a direction that benefits themselves and society as a whole.
The reality is that the lessons learned and exemplified in it are used far more often to push people into the types of directions and decisions you touch on here.
Social media creates the illusion of ultimate free speech. You can post anything! And if what you say is popular it will spread far and wide. It seems like a free market place of ideas.
But in some ways it's a bit more like a newspaper: a collection of information filtered by and editorial board. This can vary a great deal by topic and by platform.
The claim the social media was free and open ended when "timelines" or the selection of posts that users see were subjected to an algorithm.
2/
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