How Technology Disrupted the Truth in The Guardian on 7/12/2026
“When a fact begins to resemble whatever you feel is true, it becomes very difficult for anyone to tell the difference between facts that are true and “facts” that are not.”
“When “facts don’t work” and voters don’t trust the media, everyone believes in their own “truth” – and the results, as we have just seen, can be devastating.” (in reference to Brexit)
Relates to ideas presented by Kevin Patrick Lynch in his book The Internet of Us concerning “google-knowing” aka easy acceptance of receptive knowledge and changes in evidence-based reasoning.
Caught “between the open platform of the web as its architects envisioned it and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob.” This brings up questions about the difference between”public” v “private” on the web. Very few online spaces are truly public forums for sharing/participating. Most spaces are privatized, where the user has no control over the space and in participating, they submit to the rules, functions, guidelines, and architects of that space. Moreover, what does this mean for our access to media and the news, especially when this access is controlled via algorithms designed to show up specific/popular headlines?
If “we cannot agree on what those truths are, and when there is no consensus about the truth and no way to achieve it, chaos soon follows.” This can be seen in the recent polarization of views in the election and beyond. For example, on Facebook, people are fed certain stories by their newsfeed and the circle of friends who post such stories. (There has also been criticism of this polarization, see here and here.) In the echo chamber of facebook and social media, we see/hear what we want to see/hear because we are friends with people who typically agree with us. According to the Guardian article, “Increasingly, what counts as a fact is merely a view that someone feels to be true – and technology has made it very easy for these “facts” to circulate with a speed and reach that was unimaginable in the Gutenberg era”.
“Nowadays it’s not important if a story’s real, the only thing that really matters is whether people click on it.” –ex-Gawker blogger Neetzan Zimmerman on the present state of news reporting.
The Guardian article suggests that this demonstrates how “we are in the midst of a fundamental change in the values of journalism – a consumerist shift.” News is no longer about creating an informed public as a democratic necessity but rather focuses on getting hits, clicks, and shares.
#majorugh
