It's vitally important in this supposed information age that people be able to get genuine information. Someone could write an interesting book about the U.S. FCC act and mail regulations of the past and how they have eroded and not applied to so-called new media. Maybe one day someone will while it might do some good. Spin, slant, infotainment etc. have never been more prominent and actually the youngest people are the more aware in my experience and really I'd have thought it would be older people to be more critical/conservative about what they take in. That is one hopeful note anyway.
My uncle is older and on facebook more than anyone, and the one person in our family to have adopted some very radial ideas causing a falling out not unlike what many in the U.S. are experiencing (and in the U.K. around Brexit). It now comes out that a lot of 'fake news' was being spread/targeted through facebook (I never have signed up and barely looked at it over the years). He seemed to come out with different 'facts' from anyone else a lot and become irritable when others would question things he was outraged over, and these were mostly non-Canadian things. You'd think eventually people would be outraged-out, but maybe that explains those people dropping out? I doubt there are simple answers but democracies do depend on people having access to real information to make informed choices. They say many U.K. voters were not and thus made a reactionary decision based not on full or correct info. We bear much of the responsibility in informing ourselves and hopefully people can and will learn how to do that. It may not be entertaining, exciting or simple but it's our responsibility. Just knowing is doing something. Many long-standing media concerns go to a lot of expense and effort to verify facts, they have records you can look into and judge them by, and to not respect and value them is a huge mistake. Believe me.
