>It's increasingly discussed in traditional media too so let's toss out that first line glib dismissal.

Traditional media is the absolute worst possible source for anything related to social media because of the extreme conflict of interest. Decentralised media is a fundamental threat to the business model of centralised media, so of course most of the coverage of social media in traditional media will be negative.

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Theodores 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I wish to quibble with you on this as there is a love/hate relationship between the conventional media and social media.

The mainstream media have several sources, including the press releases that get sent to them, the newswires they get their main news from and social media.

In the UK the press, in particular, the BBC, were early adopters of Twitter. Most of the population would not have heard of it had it not been for the journalists at the BBC. The journalists thought it was the best thing since the invention of the printing press. Latterly Instagram has become an equally useful source to them and, since Twitter became X, there is less copying and pasting tweets.

The current U.S. President seems capable of dictatorship via social media, so following his messages on social media is what the press do. I doubt any journalist has been on whitehouse.gov for a long time, the regular web and regular sources have been demoted.

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alisonatwork 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unfortunately most of what people understand as "social media" is not decentralized, and most of the biggest names on Substack in particular come directly out of "traditional media", which is exactly why it's not a real alternative. Substack is just another newspaper except now readers have to pay for every section they want to read.

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bluebarbet 2 days ago | parent [-]

The difference between traditional and social media is not just technical. Traditional media hosts a profession (journalism) with a code of ethics, editorial oversight, minimal standards, a mission of truth-seeking. It's easy to be cynical but those things have generally served us well. The Substack jungle is not a good replacement.

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ivewonyoung 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Traditional media hosts a profession (journalism) with a code of ethics, editorial oversight, minimal standards, a mission of truth-seeking

Which traditional media outlets follow those things nowadays? Genuine question, looking for information and news to consume.

	▲	jpalawaga 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		almost all of the major ones? voices on the internet have lead people to believe that the journalists at major publications are biased, and that somehow also means they're lying and unethical. what's interesting is that those opinions are taken at face value without ever happening to do any practical evaluation about traditional media outlets. the reality is, if you ever read any alt-news publication it becomes evident extremely quickly how deprived of any standards those publications actually are.

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paganel 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, they get paid to spill out stuff that materially benefits those that do the paying, there’s another name for that that I won’t use on a Sunday.

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grammarnazzzi 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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