Sacha Baron-Cohen's point is well taken, but I think that we overrate the effect of Social Media and underrate the effect of boring ass cable news in driving people to absolute insanity. TV is still the main source of news for the vast majority of the population.

TV is still absolutely dominant. And for people over 50 radio(!) is the second biggest source of news. The craziness didn't start with Facebook. It really started with Rush Limbaugh and right wing talk radio. It went into overdrive with 24 hr cable news.

Anyway I think about @lukeoneil47's collection of stories of people who have lost family members to Fox News all the time https://luke.substack.com/p/i-hate-what-theyve-done-to-almost-39f

By the way this isn't meant to be a defense of the giant tech platforms. Their influence on the society is absolutely nefarious and they should be broken up, nationalized, regulated etc.