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Are social networks a good way to get news?

#EvanPoll #poll

  • Strong yes (5%, 29 votes)
  • Qualified yes (56%, 277 votes)
  • Qualified no (28%, 140 votes)
  • Strong no (9%, 48 votes)
494 voters. Poll end: 3 days ago

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

I'm a qualified no. I think both on the Fediverse and on siloed social networks, there are a lot of news accounts. The realtime updates are a great way to find out that something is happening right now.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

But there are a lot of problems with news on social networks. First is conflating news organizations with our social contacts.

The New York Times is not my aunt; I do not care about it and want to encourage or engage with it in the same way I do with people I care about.

And my aunt is not the New York Times; she has not been fact checked nor has she verified two independent sources for her posts.

Mixing personal contacts with news sources in the same stream is a problem for both.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

So people don't click; they comment on the headline (notoriously the least accurate part of the article) and thumbnail image (which might not even be related to the content).

The conversation that comes out is not great.