We talk about "internet witch hunts", but I hadn't really considered that it might be useful to compare the situation with actual historical witch trials: Ferg

We talk about "internet witch hunts", but I hadn't really considered that it might be useful to compare the situation with actual historical witch trials: Ferguson said that the phenomenon of polarization was predictable, when one considers similar historical events. To understand our time, he said, you must go back 500 years to the early 16th century, when the printing press became widely available. It allowed a greater volume of content to be produced and disseminated with a lower cost of communication. The Mark Zuckerberg figure of that time was Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation. Luther’s axiom, he said, was that if you could read the Bible and have a direct relationship with God, everything would be awesome. But what ensued was 130 years of conflict due to polarization. Half of the population wanted to reform the church, the other half didn’t, he said. The most insidious manifestation of this polarization was in the persecution of those considered to be witches. The “witchcraft mania,” Ferguson said, was not just in Salem, Massachusetts; it swept across Europe. Today we see a similar manifestation in the context of fake news that spreads faster than true news, which undermines our confidence in the media. As an aside, in the unlikely event that you are passing through the small Arctic town of Vardø, Norway, there's a stunningly understated monument to the "witches" killed there in the 17th century. The main museum is a long raised hallway, with dangling light bulbs illuminating excerpts from the court records of each person that was executed. It's in historical order, so one reads of one person who accuses another of witchcraft leading to their execution, who then in turn is denounced and executed, who then in turn is denounced and executed, layer after layer after layer. It's really quite a chilling museum, and a testament to a legal process gone awry: https://www.iconeye.com/architecture/features/item/9674-peter-zumthor-s-vardo-memorial https://www.iconeye.com/architecture/features/item/9674-pete...