In this article, Ben Thompson proposes no clear alternative to the status quo of Facebook distributing fake news/propaganda, suggesting, vaguely, that "whatever

In this article, Ben Thompson proposes no clear alternative to the status quo of Facebook distributing fake news/propaganda, suggesting, vaguely, that "whatever fixes this problem must spring from the power of the Internet." Furthermore, he seems to argue for an economic fatalism about both the news media and Facebook, that they must provide what users want, and that users want fake news/propaganda to support their own opinion, so the media and Facebook must provide it. On the media: "The media couldn’t have done a damn thing about Trump if they had wanted to. The reason the media covered Trump so extensively is quite simple: that is what users wanted." On Facebook: "the company is heavily incentivized to be perceived as neutral by all sides; anything else would drive away users, a particularly problematic outcome for a social network." If this economic fatalism argument is correct, then I see no reason to believe that some other solution will "spring from the power of the Internet," and democracy is doomed. Certainly Thompson himself provides no reason to think a solution will exist, even one that "springs from the power of the Internet." He is correct that "if we choose, [we have] access to more information and sources of truth than ever before, and more ways to reach out and understand and persuade those with whom we disagree." But if we can't actually tell which news sources are providing truth, and we all want lies, and so thereby the lies are easier to find/access/distribute, then the problem cannot be solved. But if his economic fatalism argument isn't correct, then it really has nothing to do with his second argument that FB shouldn't decide the news. As for Facebook, most their proposed solutions https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103269806149061 https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103269806149061 look like solutions Thompson would like. Thompson argues that Facebook shouldn't "decide the news," not for economic reasons, but because FB could make the wrong decisions under a totalitarian government. Facebook strongly agrees, "We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves," so they won't. FB proposes easy reporting and third-party verification, which sound to me like they "spring from the power of the Internet," whatever that means. If FB decides to "raise the quality bar" on the "Related Articles" section by measuring positive citations, in a way vaguely reminiscent of Google PageRank, that would spring from the power of the Internet, I guess. None of that matters if people are always going to click on propaganda and share it no matter what. So Thompson is either wrong about the economic fatalism argument, or FB is already planning to give him what he wants, or both.