Whether social media dupes people or merely amplifies their existing prejudices is unresolved.
Evidence
Some social and cultural commentators have even suggested that WhatsApp has been scapegoated and that the viral spread of these fake rumours is simply providing a ‘licence to kill’. There is a larger, heated scientific discussion about social media here: is fake news spreading on social media duping inattentive and otherwise well-intentioned people, or do people already have troubling motivations in place that make them receptive to the megaphone that this new technology is offering? — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 360
Categorization
- QUESTION: The ‘duping vs. megaphone’ dichotomy frames a live empirical unsettledness ripe for investigation: can fake-news harm be reduced by literacy training alone when audience motivations already predispose belief?
- XREF: The question directly resurfaces Schama’s ‘sacrifice’ and ‘grafting’ ADDENDUM articles’ interest in how pre-existing cultural tensions get weaponized; also parallels ch.5’s superordinate-narrative discussion. — connects to: Social media amplifies rather than causes pre-existing biases in susceptible users; Digital media isolate people from contrary opinion which face-to-face life once forced — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 118; Social media platforms simulate a public sphere they now merely exploit. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 580
- DEEPTHINKING: The ‘licence to kill’ observation, coupled with the duping-vs-megaphone distinction, is a deep, unresolved question about whether fake news harm is primarily an epistemic or a motivational failure — resists a one-line summary.
Broader Connections
- Digital media isolate people from contrary opinion which face-to-face life once forced
#qualifies(0.75) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 118 - Social media platforms simulate a public sphere they now merely exploit.
#qualifies(0.72) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 580