Yes - absolutely this. Earlier the media market was able to make the case of "free speech" and we had no way of arguing that this cycle was true or not. At the

Yes - absolutely this. Earlier the media market was able to make the case of "free speech" and we had no way of arguing that this cycle was true or not. At the old rate of content, the harms were less prominent and the system seemed to balance itself out (although the behavior of certain media outlets indicate that it was a problem even then.) Markets force optimization, and for media firms the optimization force is engagement. This has been a problem from before and its the same problem now, except at a content sharing speed which the old arguments were not built for.