Are social media networks changing the news gathering and disseminating process for better or for worse?

I question the sanity of people that say that relying on viral videos and extremist influencers is good for anybody.

generally good. it means the mainstream media does not get to dicatate the narrative. But of course, like everything in life it's a double-edged sword.

Now for the worse with high levels of fake news.

Independent media that have no presence on major TV channels have been reporting the truth about Gaza via social media. Intercept, Gray Zone, Declassified, Novara, Double Down News etc. Rightwing antiwar people too, like antiwar.org. I have far more time for antiwar, anti-military industrial complex right than I do for the center left who are apologists for slaughter in Iraq and now Gaza.

If you want fake news, turn off social media and tune into any major news network who'll give you official government announcements with no checking whatsoever. The news is now "Rishi Sunak says ....", not what reality we can see with our own eyes.

Oh, Much worse. No question about it. I'm not saying its ALL rubbish, but sadly so much of it is that it tarnishes the rest.

Like major news channels are unbiased and don't just repeat the government line !!!

There would be lots of facts that are inconvenient to "progressives" -- the Hunter Biden laptop story, for instance -- that we never would have heard about without social media and alternative news sources.

The mainstream leftist media bent over backwards trying to censor that story (and the left has the gall to complain about "election interference"!), and would've gotten away with it if they were our only news sources.

Too bad that story didn't come out till after the election. Polls show that a high-enough-to-change-the-outcome percentage of voters would not have voted for Biden had they known about it.

Wouldn’t know. But if liberals so worse because of “fake news”, then they’re just angry that folks aren’t line dancing to CNNFOXBBCMSNBC etc anymore. How many years did the MSM peddle Hillary’s Russia hoax, or babies thrown out of incubators, or the BIG one, the 2nd Gulf war and WMDs.

PAAAALeasesss

Quo PrimumMar. 4 09:38 pm JST

Someday you'll be able to track down who the "big guy" is. Or not, because it is Russian disinformation.

FizzBitMar. 4 10:06 pm JST

Wouldn’t know. But if liberals so worse because of “fake news”, then they’re just angry that folks aren’t line dancing to CNNFOXBBCMSNBC etc anymore. How many years did the MSM peddle Hillary’s Russia hoax, or babies thrown out of incubators, or the BIG one, the 2nd Gulf war and WMDs.

PAAAALeasesss

I don't think your free thinkers would have had actual contrary evidence to the the Iraq War speeches but I'm sure their Russian backers would have made something up. And the Russian connection to Trump is obvious and continuing.

Independent media that have no presence on major TV channels have been reporting the truth about Gaza via social media. Intercept, Gray Zone, Declassified, Novara, Double Down News etc. Rightwing antiwar people too, like antiwar.org. I have far more time for antiwar, anti-military industrial complex right than I do for the center left who are apologists for slaughter in Iraq and now Gaza.

If you want fake news, turn off social media and tune into any major news network who'll give you official government announcements with no checking whatsoever. The news is now "Rishi Sunak says ....", not what reality we can see with our own eyes.

This times 100m.

Are social media networks changing the news gathering and disseminating process for better or for worse?

For worse.

It's great in Canada no longer having a Facebook news feed. It made the country 10% better.

But if liberals so worse because of “fake news”, then they’re just angry that folks aren’t line dancing to CNNFOXBBCMSNBC etc anymore.

Yeah, but you watch Fox (they lie you know).

Wouldn’t know. But if liberals so worse because of “fake news”, then they’re just angry that folks aren’t line dancing to CNNFOXBBCMSNBC etc anymore. How many years did the MSM peddle Hillary’s Russia hoax, or babies thrown out of incubators, or the BIG one, the 2nd Gulf war and WMDs.

Yeah, you’ve got to use your own discretion.

I like your line dancing idea. The alternative media crowd are better choreographed than a K-pop band with beliefs in scamdemics, climate change as a hoax, stolen elections, proxy war, go woke go broke etc.

Very little room for free thinking.

Very little room for free thinking.

They complain about cancel culture, when they have perfected it. Try being a Republican and claim Trump didn't win in 2020; death threats are your new norm. You are canceled.

Frankly just awful. Only fanatics from the right or left post and all of it is fake. Even the NY Times is biased. You really need to be 100% skeptical of all news.

Social media has no "truth filter". That's bad. The abuse by authoritarian govts is amazing. They have hundreds of thousands of fake accounts posting propaganda and fake information/videos. Then they have other fake accounts following and "Liking" those posts.

There is a well known, easy to see way to see these things. Find almost any popular post by any of the 5K+ CCP Govt accounts. Most have 100-400 "views", but 750K+ followers. Anytime that account has something important to say, their bots get to work making the "views" go over 1+M ... but there will be just a few, under 50, comments. Even those 50 commends will be very short, "Go XYZ!" comments. That isn't how real people work. 1-2% of viewers will comment, so there should be around 10K comments on a post that has that many views.

It isn't THAT hard for the social media platforms to look for these simple things.

JT modertators certainly have seen this countless times here. They do a great job of removing those types of comments ... and some of our comments too. Given the alternative, I'll happily have a few comments removed every week. Really wish they's limit the number of comments allowed by each account to a thread.

There isn't much news out there anymore. Only spin and opinion pushers. The click bait industry has morphed into a monster that devours all in its wake.

Never has critical thinking been a more vital skill than now, and it’s about to go into hyper drive with AI. Has the education system kept up? Young minds don’t stand a chance.

Just look at the corrupt NHK in Japan. Not only their news are the most biased in Japan and come directly with a government blessing, but they way they enforce their callous over expensive Mafia tax to the population, is ridiculously grotesque and unbelievable in a modern society.

The Press, in the very end, is owned by an individual or a group with their own biases. But in many countries there are laws to grant what is being published - as a service - is mostly reliable. Different from a blog or individual who publishes whatever, zero responsibility - and recently acting mainly on the realm of political, religious or violent (polemical) spectrum to gather popularity and disseminate whatever.