Re:Social media bubbles may threaten democracy
by ThrustVectoring on Thursday June 08, 2017 @03:49PM
(#14516677)
Yeah, and another complicating factor is that Facebook's control over your news feed feels invisible. How much pro-Trump content you see in your news feed feels like it's entirely the fault of how pro-Trump your friends are. How much pro-Trump content you see in your newspaper feels like it's the fault of the paper's editorial board, regardless of whether it's a letter to the editor or an official piece.
Many previous mechanisms for sharing do have such central control mechanisms, and exercise them far more enthusiastically than does FB. Dead tree print outlets are a mechanism for sharing with such features. Meatspace social clubs are a sharing mechanism with such features.
Facebook may be unique in the degree of it's reach for a sharing mechanism with the capacity for centralized editorial control, but it is not historically unique in being a sharing mechanism which features the capacity for centralized editorial control.