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Comment by jaredtking | Hacker News Reader

I'm in a similar boat as you having quit Facebook several years ago after the revelations about the emotion manipulation experiments they were running. At first I did not understand why people were so polarized about the candidates. Now I'm attributing this mainly to being cut off from Facebook.

EDIT: By polarized I mean intense hatred, coming from both sides

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Were you also cut off from all forms of media? Even the most neutral sources had stories about how both candidates were the most disliked in history, protests and violence at rallies, etc. Even if you personally didn't have any strong opinions, anyone who even casually followed the news should have understood the general sentiments of the country.

It is possible to (use FB and) steer clear of news about the candidates while still consuming media (including HN & Reddit) on a daily basis. I successfully did it for the entirety of the run up to the election (including the night of). The most I knew were a few headlines about Hillary's email scandal and that Trump wanted to build a wall.

That said, I happen to live abroad (which doesn't stop local media and locals from trying to talk about it).

I'm not that poster, but I try to stay well informed while avoiding any kind of spam and mass media. I understood the general sentiment of the country, but I didn't understand why we'd regressed so much. Classic media always promoted some amount of fear, but now it's competing against digital media... a world filled with pandering and blatant lies. There's no more journalistic integrity or accountability.

If knowledge is the life-blood of democracy, America is suffering from leukemia...

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