Social media did not invent propaganda but reshaped information flow along three axes.

Evidence

The parallels between what happened over 2,000 years ago and modern-day political propaganda are striking. So, if disinformation has been around for centuries, what’s all the fuss about, you might ask? What’s changed, if anything? … That is exactly the key question I want to tackle here. Although social media clearly did not invent propaganda or polarization, it has changed the nature of the game. Social media has fundamentally reshaped the flow of information in society. Specifically, it has changed the speed with which information can travel, the number of people that can be reached with a single click of a button, as well as the social context in which information is delivered and manipulated. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 313

Categorization

• DEFINE: Chapter’s core analytical frame: speed, reach, and medium-as-social-context are the three variables that distinguish modern misinformation from its historical ancestors.
• XREF: connects to: False news reached more people than truth on Twitter, driven by human sharing. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 346; Social media’s novelty is the speed, reach, and medium of disinformation, not its existence — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 326