Comment by bumby

Thanks for elaborating.

I think where the disagreement may be is that the internet (defined as the applications, not as the infrastructure), and social media in particular, isn't optimized for open communication or sharing different viewpoints. It's optimized for capturing our attention. Unfortunately, the way it often does this is by hijacking our psychology; one way is by confirmation bias and another is by inducing outrage (which strengthens our pre-existing beliefs). The flow of information is not "free"; it's curated to the ends of the attention economy so even while there is a lot more availability of information, it's passing through some filters that may not be the most productive for society. In other words, it's designed to reinforce our pre-existing beliefs rather than challenge them.

Those filters become social media's own "layers of privileges" to a certain extent. I think the downside with those compared to previous media is that the new filters are much more difficult to interpret compared with, say, a newspaper's political leanings.