Two people who live near each other, work together, shop at the same stores, send their children to the same school, et al, will have completely different experiences when they go on the internet. And each person's experience is hidden from the other, so there is no way for one person to get a glimpse of how the other is seeing their news. That means if those two people were to talk to each other about what they've seen on the internet, they will be confounded by the lack of common experience. What shared experiences exist are likely banal topics such as sports or movies. Each person will be convinced that their knowledge is the dominant viewpoint because it's the majority of the things they find on the web. It's the other guy who is missing the big picture.
Instead of me choosing the newspaper. It's the newspaper choosing me.
Imagine there being competing interpretations of God? How could we form a community? Wont people have completely different experiences in life if they don't have the same experience with God? If we let someone get exposed to the "bad media" before they are exposed to the "good media" how will they ever know what the "good media" is? Can someone please think of the children?
It turns out not a lot of people are actually in favor of freedom when push comes to shove.
[1] There's long been a place in political philosophy for acknowledging that it's possible for the masses to have too much direct power
If you're talking about a central authority choosing what information people get to see, wouldn't that make Facebook and their algorithm the Church in this situation?
Anecdotally it feels that way in modern society.
Ask a random person if they believe Fox news.
Accepting this flow of information as true does indeed seem like idiocy