I never use X, Facebook, etc. I have known since their beginning that they are powerful propaganda tools tuned to influences specific individuals. One must be quite naive to believe that any of these platforms convey facts.
In fact, facts are all too often lacking in almost all reporting. Facts are elusive, confusing, not readily available, and also do not convey the message desired by the platform they appear upon.
My information gathering is eclectic and idiosyncratic. I use Feedly and examine up to 30+ news sites in multiple languages. From Le Monde, to the Guardian, to various Hong Kong papers, to the Jerusalem Post and Saudi press. Each has its own ax to grind and each may contain some facts but a great deal of opinion.
In a recent Science paper they note:
Similarly, public discourse about social media has been shaped by the assumption that platform algorithms are the primary cause of exposure to false and extremist content online. For example, a 2022 article in The New York Times begins by stating that “It is well known that social media amplifies misinformation and other harmful content” and then proceeds to cite non-academic work by an advocacy group. Broad assertions like these neglect a growing body of research on consumer demand for false and extremist content, the role of media and political elites in exposing people to misinformation, and how platform affordances enable the distribution of such content to subscribers and followers. In short, although algorithms indisputably shape the content people see, we interpret recent empirical evidence as suggesting that, on average, these algorithms tend to push users to more moderate content and to offer extreme content predominantly to those who have sought it out. Increasing public attention to this research will help to foster a broader conversation about other mechanisms of misinformation dissemination and harm besides algorithms.Finally, social media is particularly vulnerable to the human tendency to confuse correlation with causation. Surveys show that US citizens blame social media for the spread of misinformation, political incivility and even political violence This tendency may reflect the temporal association between social media usage levels and negative social trends of the past two decades as well as the way in which social media content refracts societal ills. However, much of the research explicitly designed to identify causal effects does not support these claims
The NY Times is notorious for selling its advocacy propaganda before any "factual" news. Even the factual news can be infected with internal positions. Thus to gather true facts, if such were possible, one must examine data across a wide set of sources and totally avoid the social media platforms. Despite the last sentence above, well crafted propaganda can exist and be quite difficult to ascertain.
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