One of the toughest things I’ve had to learn about social media and the mainstream news is that the narrative is manufactured and out of touch with reality, making a lot of what we see and hear no different than the old fashioned propaganda you get in brutal dictatorships.

If you think about it, having huge media corporations control the news is not really that different than having a brutal government dictatorship control the news. The end result is the same. You have a few powerful douchebags controlling the narrative for millions of citizens.

This is also why the age of social media has been very good to China, which is the master of controlling a huge population extremely tightly through WeChat and maybe soon through Tik Tok. Social media gives us the illusion of free speech when it in fact is so tightly controlled.

Stuff like social media echo chambers, mob actions, suspension of due process, viral disinformation and misinformation, and so many other problems we see on social media are actually huge assets for governments like China and other dictatorships. We got totally fooled into this.

Unless we learn how to thoughtfully and critically question everything we hear from the mainstream news, how to rely upon facts and evidence over rumor and innuendo, how to bring the ideals of due process and fairness to our actions, we will become brutal dictators to ourselves.