It spreads blatant lies. Not all rumors are lies, though.
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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Oh, it "harms democracy", doesn't it? How about this headline: social media fuels a genocide by spreading rumors, Myanmar finds. But alas, that was 2017 and only brown people getting harmed in some far-away place, so it's old news and nothing to hold Facebook accountable for, eh?
The greatest tragedy of the internet is when we accepted that lies are worth more than the truth.
Rumors? That's a funny way of spelling propaganda.
It also includes trolling and people that are just plain wrong, but people tend to believe what they want to believe.
It's more than just spreading rumors. Rumors have been spread for millenia, and democracy made it through OK.
The difference is that the social media companies have a much broader reach than any sort of media congglamerate that came before it, and value engagement and attention above everything else. They understand that rumors generate attention, and their algorithmic feeds are designed to put whatever will generate more engagement in front of you.
I wonder how much damage media titans like Hearst would have done today if they built their empires now, on top of social media feeds, instead of in print 125 years ago....
I wonder how much damage media titans like Hearst would have done today if they built their empires now, on top of social media feeds, instead of in print 125 years ago…
Is there really much of a difference besides the speed of communication? Social media is the top medium that people get their news from, just like newspapers from 125 years ago, and just like TV (Fox News) from 40 years ago . Have enough control over that medium and you have control over the information flow, enough to generate your own propaganda and have a real meaningful impact.
Besides that fact that social media can post information in a matter of minutes vs. the daily cycle of newspapers, I don't really see the difference. Social media isn't really special in that regard. If anything, the control has shifted more towards the public. But, people are still lacking in critical thinking skills and continue to idolize famous people as a proxy for trustworthiness. Hence, they still fall for rumors and disinformation, especially if some famous dumbass said it.
I postulate that corporate social media has only one goal outside of making money: influencing public opinion. Any algorithms that optimize for engagement with ideas that are hostile to democracy should be forbidden, just as influencing foreign elections in general.
Just remove algorithms that are predictive in nature. Everything non-deterministic, targeted to anything more than high level and imprecise location or similar should be illegal. At the end of the day, the spirit of the law needs to be that dragnet mass surveillance, and the capture and sale of user data for predictive purposes, is an information asymmetry that is an attack vector for propaganda, manipulation, coercion, and general logical corruption of a population.
It is an imminent national security threat to allow such practices, which benefit the most unethical and immoral criminal participants, the most.
Not more than lobbies and billionaires
Oh yes they do, as a multiplicator of everything that lobbies and billionaires say and do.
And by extension the bastardization and gutting of basic education. People who aren't taught how to think won't understand things.
No source linked, so that's just a rumor spread by reuters.
Is the study they are referring to
Well I didn’t vote for Reuters
News came before the internet, so they state sources, not link them, which they did in the first sentence:
Oct 1 (Reuters) - A growing number of people think social media manipulates and divides people and harms democracy, Pew Research Center said on Thursday
The point of a sarcastic comment like mine, is to shame reuters for their shitty behavior, that has fallen behind the times.
As the other commenter has demonstrated, finding the study is easy. For everyone, including reuters. The reason they don't link them is cultural, they are so arrogant to believe they don't have to. Which pisses me off and sarcasm and ridiculing them is the only tool available to me to maybe make them stop eventually.
They also spread the truth as well even when government and media have conspired to obscure it. Social media has led to people beating companies, governments and politicians simply by providing an avenue to share reality. Social media defends democracy and protects democracy. There has always been an enormous power balance issues between the elites and the peasants and social media for the first time is allowing the peasants to speak to each other rather than the only voice being the elites through their media platforms.
for the first time is allowing the peasants to speak to each other rather
That's what the tavern was for...
You know, the place where the elites couldn't manipulate the topics of conversation and shared sentiment by adjusting algorithms and shadowbanning ideas they don't like...
Your main point might hold if people were mostly using fediverse platforms, but such is not the case
My guy... Social media ARE the elites media platforms you Dingus.
They aren't letting people do shit, they are all censored and monitored to ensure we stay fractured and disengaged
He seems stuck at what social media was in 2012 and hasn't realized how they are now.
Yet in principle the social benefit described (amplifying voices of the unheard) isn’t entirely out of reach for social media as a category, especially if we can escape the era of closed platforms. Open alternatives are still relatively new. There is a plausible future in which closed platforms are left behind and we become much more capable of keeping mass public manipulation in check.
Exactly but I think for most people social media = the ones used by the masses, the "social normiedia", like Facebook and Twitter.
Twitter = Arab Spring because it lets them use cheap SMS flipphones!
Now that Saudi Arabia basically owns Twitter that will never happen again. Not to mention when they hacked in ~10 years ago to get data on dissidents.
Alternative Social Media like mastodon or Bluesky are also pretty fractured
They did. That's why they spent so much effort to ruin the internet these past few years.
Greta Hopkins ruined my small village by spreading rumours. There was no survey, if you knew Greta, you knew it was her.
I love the quiet irony you employed here. I know nothing about Greta Hopkins other than she's a village-ruining whore who should suffer for all the pain she's caused!
I don't know her, I don't know the village, and I don't know you, but that bitch needs to go down. Thanks, social media!