Of course, in the pre-internet age we were forced to outsource our thinking to the press instead, it's just that you're less likely to see them running articles about how they themselves are waging a war on our free will.
Sure, reading certain newspapers or others was and is a way for people to shape their views of the world, but it is very much a one way relationship. I can read what I want or I don't, but there is no intimate connection.
Also the press at least is in part a civic institution, it's held responsible to at least some common standard. Social media, which is entirely private and corporate operates in opaque fashion bound to basically nothing but their own interest.
There is a small glimmer of pressure on Twitter and Facebook from the public since last year. Things are changing. Glacially slowly, as always, but they are changing. I suppose that's the same development that happened with newspapers a few centuries ago. (I would be very surprised to hear that newspapers were held responsible to some sort of common standard from the very beginning.)
Also then it was the authority of press that supposed to do the thinking, but now I feel it's echo chamber and social pressure.
The public cries out because of the way its treated by Facebook. There's a simple solution: stop hiring children. Or at least stop putting them in positions of power.