the NYT isn't highly likely to publish things that source to Russian propaganda ops, because they employ fact-checkers, care about pedigree of information, and change their editorial process in light of system failures. They get tripped from time-to-time, but the same trick doesn't usually work twice.
My relatives on Facebook? Not so much. Nor did Facebook (until recently) care to put an editorial eye to advertising as long as the money was green.
It is not a guarantee that a system structured like this is healthy for democracy, nor is it a guarantee that a democracy doesn't destabilize under it.
The people who lied us into Iraq?
In that case, they had multiple intelligence agency sources feeding them the same bad data, so their cross-checks failed. They've down-sampled the reliability of those sources in subsequent years.
The NYTimes role in society is packaging official narratives for mass consumption. Their MO is mindlessly repeating whatever the IC tells them. This is not a new concept [1].
[1] https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/orwells-proposed-introduc...
And the alternatives are fantastic, for those who chose to use them intelligently.
> The difference between Orwell and Stephenson is that Orwell spent time as a police officer in Burma, and a solider in Spain. Stephenson does not understand the corrupting influence of power...
So you're saying Orwell has practical experience, such that one should weigh his musings on the subject more highly, while Stephenson is some rando expositing from a place he doesn't understand?
Fascinating. What happens if a bunch of people just disagree with your argumentum ab auctoritate and accept Stephenson's musings anyway? That would result in a bad outcome?
Should we have a mechanism in place to tilt people towards Orwell's interpretation over Stephenson (such as, hypothetically, putting one and not the other on the required reading curricula of schools)? If not, what happens if the Stephensonian interpretation of risks wins out?
That massive (and growing) unaccountable bureaucracy with secret law that types up the talking points the NYT helpfully launders into national security "journalism".