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The real story in this mess is not the threat that algorithms pose to Amazon shoppers, but the threat that algorithms pose to journalism. By forcing reporters to optimize every story for clicks, ...

Because newspapers never did this kind of sloppy reporting before the interweb thingy.

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I think the point is not that some news outlets are doing sloppy reporting in exchange for eyeballs, but that all of them -- even those that used to be able to trade on their reputation for good reporting -- now have to chase the same eyeballs using the same tricks.

I too was perplexed by that. Moral panics are the stock-in-trade of the sensationalist press, so blaming algorithms for speeding up what was already wrong with the media is kinda ridiculous. The basic problem is that there is a lot of money to be made by telling dramatic-sounding lies to people who want their worldview corroborated. News is a pretty competitive market, so it's not very surprising that the quality of news tends towards a lowest common denominator.

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