I understand your point, but I think the platform is relevant. There are four platforms that have a considerable number of users (TikTok, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook/Instagram), and they all have provenly effective censorship, especially optimized over the past couple of years. If it's one of those four, it does matter.
I would also claim that the platform is only irrelevant if removing that platform results in a negligible reduction in views. Removing TikTok removes 1/4 of the services, and probably the vast majority of younger eyes.
If everyone on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube is talking about something, people will be talking about it on TikTok. If they aren't, that is noticeable and that too will be something people will talk about. That can actually lead to more attention on that platform due to the Streisand effect.
The primary concern would be if all the social networks censor the same thing, but that isn't a concern here due to the opposing political views unless your concern about censorship is just these platforms not allowing extreme violence, but that isn't what the article is discussing.
1) “Wtf, why’s your dog laying on a nail??” “It doesn’t hurt enough yet” 2) YouTube is paying people enough that they make a good living and questioning the policies means potentially risking their bills not getting paid.
Three of those platforms are American-controlled and one is Chinese-controlled. Even if all four have "effective censorship", it seems unlikely that American-controlled and Chinese-controlled platforms will block/manipulate in the same way and to the same end.
This is not a fixed set either – every few years, a new platform pops up. Tiktok is a relatively recent example, Instagram an earlier one.
If content restriction gets too heavy-handed, people will respond by moving to new platforms which are less restrictive – at least in free(-ish) countries. I personally think that inconsistent and overly heavy-handed moderation – punishing too many users by algorithm for innocent or trivial things, even while reports against other users doing seemingly much more serious things are dismissed – is one of the factors behind Facebook's recent slide in users.
Added to that, many people on the political right (30-40% of the population) view these platforms as politically biased against them, and are keen to find new places without that perceived bias. Attempts at establishing more conservative-friendly platforms generally come unstuck by being overrun by extremists (neo-Nazis, antisemites, etc) who push mainstream right-wing users away, and also through pure incompetence (both technical and business). But I think it is likely that sooner or later someone is going to come up with the right balance to succeed in that space.
The common idea is to assume that “the masses” move slowly, but the reality is that when properly motivated everyone wakes up early and changes technology in a matter of hours. Many of them bringing their followers with them with only the last of the followers being the ones moving slowly.
If not deep-fakes than at least propaganda, like this one of Chomsky stating that US promised no NATO expansion which is not true: https://v16-webapp.tiktok.com/c7fe2cbc57cb276832f49e2542fe4f...
People on TikTok aren’t reading twittter. They’re doomscrolling on TikTok and sponging information for better or for worse.
This is about trusting the source, sure it could weaken traditional media outlets, but some of them are driven by social media, you will often see stuff first on Reddit and then a day or two later its a DailyMail story.
That tiktok footage of the two jets fighting was shown on a UK tv news channel, but watching it, I couldnt tell you the date time or location, I dont recognise the location so cant say where it was, and its like watching the mainstream media, their reuse of library shots sometimes labelled as library shots and other times not, makes anything hard to trust.
Another technique I saw on the news, was one studio news reporter asking a military base commander some questions, the interview was shown again later on but 2nd time around, the studio news reporter was a different person asking the same questions.
Anything which doesnt include two people in the same shot is questionable.
In todays age, where CGI makes the past come aline, you can get software from Adobe which can instantly change the colour of clothes in video clips with minimal effort, and photoshopping, makes this a distraction.
If anything its a psychological measure of fear, to work out how people react to different situations, which the internet is very good at doing.
I also find it interesting talking to people to see what they bring up thats been on the news and not, I sometimes think in todays digital age with digital transmissions and digital tv and settop boxes we get a personal form of news. Why do I say this, well we are given an idea of how the news studios work, but what about the other studio presenters, are they doing the same in a different studio, have the news anchors recorded a variety of piece to camera's and they get edited and digitally delivered to different people.
Question everything, but unless you see it with your own eyes, dont rate it too highly and even if you saw something with your own eyes, have you been surreptitiously drugged, or are you just seeing some live performance with actors?
Obedience to authority experiments are always ongoing.
Introducing doubt into an argument is a valid debating technique.
Edit: I saw this as someone who witnessed some people winning the UK National Lottery in dubious circumstances.
It’s good to be skeptical of all media these days, just as long as you aren’t too skeptical or contrarian just for the sake of it. That line of thinking has led to fantastical conspiracy theory thinking. One side refused to admit that COVID vaccines can potentially be harmful and have a nontrivial amount of risk. The other refused to admit any benefit and didn’t get vaccinated at all. If instead we were presented the full story, instead of 4 minute sound bites, I suspect the pandemic would have been over a long time ago. Same with the anxieties of WW3 in this case.
Is the media culpable if it makes a normal, rational person go insane?
Also, it seems that since two days ago, pandemic is no more, at least in the media.
Much like when communications go down and the amateur radio enthusiasts come out. Or how when the roads are impassable in the UP by car, you'll see people out on snowmobiles. There are enough people with reserve tech skills that I genuinely don't think it would matter if the big platforms attempted to suppress all information.
What's far more likely is that things are going to be selectively suppressed in a way that's invisible to the average person in order to control their feelings and support for whatever is occurring.
In theory and in reality, they will and have had no idea it's manipulated because they have no basis for comparison. Social media manipulation is hardly new; Russia itself has been doing it for many years. And most people say they don't care and still use Facebook, Twitter, etc., and many buy into and spread the disinformation.
> whether there is enough ambient knowledge
That 'knowledge' has to come from someplace. In fact, I would say that 'ambient knowledge', and the belief in it as some source of truth, is the medium of disinformation.
That works only if people know it's manipulated and then are motivated to act. It's hard to know if query results (broadly: search results, timelines, etc.) are manipulated because you have no basis for comparison. And IME most people don't care about social media manipulation - the disinformation campaigns have been well researched and documented for a long time.