Summary
The internet is often blamed for polarizing society and spreading misinformation, but its actual impact is more complex. Instead of creating false beliefs, it acts as a “justification machine,” helping people maintain their views despite contrary evidence. Understanding the internet’s role requires looking at pre-existing beliefs and the different media influences people engage with.
Highlights
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for most pundits, journalists, and academics, social media provides unprecedented exposure to attitudes they would otherwise be—and indeed used to be—sheltered from. Speaking personally, my offline life is dominated by highly-educated, well-mannered liberal and lefty professionals. It’s only when I log onto social media that I encounter people who believe in QAnon, think vaccines contain microchips, or view George Soros as a gay Jewish space vampire.
Un buen ejemplo del mundo social que las redes sociales abren.
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we should view the internet as a “justification machine”—a technology that “is powerful not because it changes minds, but because it allows people to maintain their beliefs in light of growing evidence to the contrary.”
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rather than understanding misleading communication in terms of “misinformation” and public gullibility, we should understand it in terms of what I call a “marketplace of rationalisations”. In such marketplaces, people (pundits, intellectuals, journalists, media companies, etc.) compete for social and financial rewards by producing justifications—intellectual ammunition—for the decisions and narratives favoured by different elites and political tribes.