Techdirt Podcast Episode 151: Facebook Won't Save Democracy

from the uncharted-territory dept

Tue, Jan 23rd 2018 1:30pm — Leigh Beadon

In the midst of the political chaos in America and the world at large, a whole lot of attention has been turned to Facebook and its role in modern democracy. The social network has responded by announcing another round of news feed changes, the true impact of which (if any) remains far from clear. This week, we're joined by Mathew Ingram from the Columbia Journalism Review to talk about Facebook's changes, and whether we can or should expect them to fix anything.

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Filed Under: democracy, fake news, mathew ingram, podcast, politics
Companies: facebook

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Killer_Tofu (profile), 24 Jan 2018 @ 4:42am

My Time at TechDirt
One of the topics discussed during the podcast was lurkers and loyalty. I started reading TechDirt back in 2006. I went by a certain handle for the first 3ish years. My posts back then were much more angry and attacking at people with different views. I was in my young 20s then. At some point I grew up some, realized how vitriolic I was being, and created a new handle to leave the anger behind. It worked pretty well, and my posts since then have been of a much higher quality. I used to comment a ton as well. Over the last few years though I have barely commented. I have worked places where I am far more busy, and my home life, having kids, is also far more busy. I still find time to read most of the posts and still find myself agreeing with TD on just about everything, much the same as when I stumbled upon it. I am thankful for this site existing, helped contribute to the legal defense fund, and am one of those who come to the site directly. I currently fit that bill of lurker though. I don't comment much but am still around and likely always will be. I still link directly to your articles when I send them to friends from time to time when the topics or companies are things they have interest in.

With regards to Facebook though, bah humbug. I left it many years ago, and intend to stay away. Since I have been gone so long, I am not sure how much of an impact it plays on any of my friends or family. They know well enough by now not to bring up that company to me.
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