Alternative social media: almost half of links are to other social media platforms
“Some 45% of all links shared by prominent accounts on these sites went to different social media brands, whether to more established sites such as YouTube or Twitter (24%) or to various alternative sites such as BitChute or Gab (21%).” - Pew
Well, with the credibility of mainstream media and government organizations being now completely shredded, and the obvious suppression of true information, this partitioning is exactly what was going to happen — i.e. people referring to different/competing sources rather than shared ones. And this isn’t just to get “alternative facts,” it’s for the ability in many cases to actually see some news at all that is ignored or even outright suppressed by many or most of the mainstream sources, from whichever PoV.
When reading an article from NYT or WP these days, I give it no more immediate credit for accuracy than I would from Gateway Pundit or Breitbart. And I don’t automatically consider Fox opinion writers to be immediately more credible than those at Vox or Politico. I find I have to read articles across a wide spectrum, and then try for myself to figure out what is true by the amounts and types of sources that quote it, often considering foreign sources as well.
What is interesting to me is that I find many of my favorite columnists these days to be the “opposite” PoV columnists, both on left and right, meaning conservative-leaning writers at liberal sources and liberal-leaning writers at conservative sources. The fact that those writers are willing to buck the prevailing thought at their publications to write what they do actually gives me (slightly) more confidence that their column might be attempting to actually tell me the truth, even if they are shading it their way too. Sadly, these are a disappearing breed as well, with many having moved to platforms like Substack after having been pushed out for their lack of “rightthink.”
I’m to the point that I don’t believe there is such a thing as trustworthy news any longer. I can’t even trust organizations like the CDC, the FBI, or the Justice Department. They’ve done this to themselves, and they refuse to even realize just how far their credibility has fallen with rank-and-file citizens.
Dave Barnhart
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