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Comment by toasterlovin | Hacker News Reader

To take the position that people only believe stuff because it is fed to them is incredibly patronizing. Sure, the fundamental dynamic of social media (that immediate and direct feedback about what captures user attention is used to determine what users see) makes things more polarized, but people are polarized to begin with. Conservatives are conservatives because they have a fundamentally different outlook about the world, not because they just happened to fall down a specific click hole on the internet.

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You're basically saying that well done propaganda doesn't work then, which is patently false.

Watching polarizing YouTube videos isn't going to flip a bit, but constant exposure to a single perspective constantly reinforced is certainly going to influence your formation of beliefs. That's exactly what YouTube does with their recommendation system

No, that's not what I'm saying. I agree that propaganda and social media are problematic. But they can only be a problem if people pay attention. And nobody is forcing people to pay attention. Which gets to my point: people have pre-existing notions and inclinations before propaganda and social media can even have an effect.

I have not taken that position. To misrepresent the views of others to make your argument easier is very patronizing.

My post was about notoriety not belief. Many things, trends and personalities are created by the media, whether you believe what they say or not. Flat earth conspiracies would never have been repeated by NBA players if not because of Youtube's recommendation algorithm.

Way before internet, I remember people were talking about how Marilyn Manson had surgery to be able to suck himself

I also remember when I watched in disbelieve people saying the sun was going around the earth.

Internet is just the reflect of human nature. Flat earth theory would have existed without it.

Maybe so, but it now enables global reach at the speed of light. You can't argue that the danger from a stick of dynamite is the same as the danger from a nuclear bomb. You might not care about the difference if you're standing next to it, but they are bit the same thing

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