That’s true, but it highlights the reverse of what’s wrong with these platforms. Media companies always had the power to decide what to amplify (that’s the whole point), but Facebook and Twitter are toxic because they don’t decide, they just short-circuit a billion reptilian hindbrains together in a screaming feedback loop of Hadean noise. If you say “the problem is powerful gatekeepers”, they’ll nod and say that’s exactly why they dogmatically refuse to edit anything, so that users are in charge of the content. Except they aren’t.
Central gatekeepers are a problem. The old media paradigm gives you Hearsts and Murdochs and doesn’t leave space for thoughtful conversation. But the new paradigm of no gatekeepers is a failed experiment in going too far the other way; it gives you Jones and Turmp and a thousand others, and it bolsters the power of Murdoch in the remaining old-media world, and it actively persecutes attempts at thoughtful conversation.
We need editors, and we need diverse media. The internet can help that happen. We just need to stop with this fucking insane mass hallucination that Twitbook represents the final immutable form of the internet.
