I am more and more convinced that social networks are causing the increased political instability and breakdown of communication. In the past media was centralized. So the powers that be focused on it and controlled the message. We had a kind of common understanding and language. Some idealize BBC or the great newspapers of the past, but they have been lying to us since forever. Remember the WMD discussions leading to Iraq war?

But now, because everyone can publish, they lost control. So instead they are bombarding us with all sorts of contradictory theories and conspiracies. We have come to be unable to communicate. And maybe that is the intended goal. If you can't control the message, make communication itself worthless. People choose emotionally and based on tribal allegiances. It has become an identity war. We can't even communicate with our parents now, there is an "explanatory gap" between identity tribes.

It was the BBC that linked me directly to Hans Blix's reports on the UN's search for WMD in Iraq. It was that that convinced me that it was all made up bullshit. It was much more convincing than the obvious wishful thinking that was coming out of the US and UK governments.

For sure social media is propagating conspiracy theories, some of which are the modern equivalent of "Saddam can deploy his WMD in 45 minutes", but I don't agree that old media was doing the same. Quite the opposite.