Comment on Big tech is a weapon of mass destruction to democracy. Here are three ways Australia can fight back
sola@aussie.zone 4 days ago
There was a time just before big tech where consensus was humans where causing global warming due to burning fossil fuels. This was undermined in less than a decade by journalists and the biggest companies back then; Fossil fuel companies.
Journalists are not the truth seeking warrior class they claim themselves to be. The population by large wants to be outraged, didn’t need algorithms to tell us, just read historical news. So journalists need to be regulated but covid showed they would rather burn the world to the ground than be restricted in anyway for a greater good.
Tenderizer@aussie.zone 4 days ago
They don’t want to be outraged, they just feel anything that outrages them is important whereas anything that doesn’t does not. So any news that’s positive about Labor is unimportant to the audience and suppressed by the media, even if it’s true.
sola@aussie.zone 4 days ago
Interesting distinction. Do you have any further reading on this? I am not on any social media, thus I have no real world experience with doom/outrage scrolling, so I cannot make judgement about the plausibility of the statement.
Tenderizer@aussie.zone 4 days ago
No further reading. Naturally though people find threats more important to know about than a news article saying “everything is fine, better than you think even, you don’t need to worry”.
Though doom scrolling does help keep people’s minds numb by flipping them between cat videos and RFK Junior endlessly. This is why doom scrolling is so good at making time disappear and some people want that.