I think with all things, the lesson is: do your homework and verify your source is reliable. Don't just take randos at their word
.
Yep, absolutely.
And it's not complicated. It's not a great mystery of the modern age, that cannot be understood by mortal man.
There
are trusted news agencies out there, with good reputations and high accountability---the BBC, Reuters, NPR, etc. They've been reporting the news for decades. They are not "randos." They've been around for years, and they are trusted names in the industry.
The biggest problem, IMO, is that most people haven't learned the difference between
legitimate journalism and
editorial content. There are a lot of businesses and agencies that present themselves as "news," right down to the costumes and set design (The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight, pretty much everything on Fox) and they aren't. If you don't know how to separate Fact from Opinion, you're setting yourself up to fail.
It's even worse on the internet--blogs, articles, and forums are almost never fact-checked or peer reviewed, and can make any claims they wish with little or no consequences. And it's the absolute worst on YouTube, which has the same lack of accountability as the rest of the Internet
and the algorithm actively promotes and rewards bad behavior. Unless you are watching content created by, and vetted by, an actual news agency, you are pretty much asking to be lied to.
And to be fair, a lot of people
are asking to be lied to. They don't like what they see on trusted news outlets--they don't like being told that pineapple on pizza is delicious, for example--so they look for someone else who will agree with them about pepperoni supremacy or whatever. They don't want the truth, they want to be
agreed with.
Anyway. Obviously this stuff is very important to me, but I'm off-topic, and I'm rambling, so I'll drop it.
