• FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    It’s not a network learning problem, it’s a network incentive problem. Trump on the campaign trail gets clicks and eyeballs, Trump in office does the same. His administration, justifiably, kept the wholeworld focused on US political news as he kept saying/doing wild and idiotic/entertaining things. Doesn’t matter if it was bigotry or insanity. It got and kept people talking, hell him saying insane things promoted more air time of people talking about how insane a thing is. Some may say there is no such thing as bad coverage, but who believe this the most is people monetizing the coverage. Trump makes news, so of course news coverage will follow the smoke to a dumpster fire.

    At no point in this equation is the health of democracy considered. Every outlet will shrug and say “not my problem” to continue making money off Trump coverage. And frankly, how are they wrong to do so? Relying on the goodwill of CEOs and shareholders is always a recipe for dissapointment.

    This whole situation is a self powered ouroboros of profits>people. The only solution is to just kill the goddamn snake but there is no easy way to remove profits from news without out mass cries of communism.