Comment by lotsofpulp
17 hours ago
In my almost 4 decades of life, today is the least amount of control over information that leaders have had, whether political or business.
When I was younger, the only way information, and especially video/audio was spread is via a select few outlets.
Today, anyone can upload anything to a variety of servers and spread the information within seconds.
That was more true in the 2000s than it is today.
Today everything you’re exposed to has to be approved for release by Google, Meta, and all of the backbone providers along the way - or you’ll be shouting into the void.
TV is dying and streaming is stagnant so I don’t think it’s particularly worrisome that big companies are buying up the dinosaurs before they go extinct.
One problem I see with this is discoverability. Most people viewing these "independent" sources are seeing them on some platform like TikTok/YouTube/FB/Twitter where algorithms have a lot to say who sees what when.
Another problem with these "independents" is they are fed their material via farms that have been proven to be run by Russian operatives which makes the quotes around independents necessary.
That is a problem of not having unlimited time. The internet (at least as it broadly exists now) solved the problem of a few people being able to prevent access to information, and in such a manner that distribution is almost instant.
Lack of unlimited time means people will need some way to choose which information to learn and which to not learn, which may well be to choose whatever is curated by Meta/Alphabet/etc, but that is a choice made by the user, not by leaders.
> that is a choice made by the user, not by leaders
Within the constraints of the algorithms and controls those leaders put into their platforms. Most of those algorithms were designed to maximize ad profits, which is tied to time on platform, with the algorithms converging on anxiety and similar negative emotions. Big data can be dangerous
Information has never been cheaper to spread, and facts never more expensive to verify.
News outlets used to be held to journalistic standards; these days they can self-regulate. Finding reputable news sources is getting harder and harder.
at the same time, the nature of "news" content has moved away from reporting what happened to speculating what might happen
> Today, anyone can upload anything
This is not necessarily better, I'm still unsure myself. I would like it to be true, but misinformation and foreign influence campaigns are much more effective these days.
The most significant change is that we no longer have a shared reality. Before our current situation, at least we got the same news. Today we get different hyperbole.