There's still several big differences. It's not so difficult to filter out good programming languages from poor ones - the barrier to entry is still fairly hig

There's still several big differences. It's not so difficult to filter out good programming languages from poor ones - the barrier to entry is still fairly high on both sides of the equation (production and adoption) and thus quantity of new languages is low. Even creating a bad programming language requires a certain degree of skill. Further, programmers have a much higher qualification to judge programming languages than the average person has to judge the quality of their news, which could span every possible topic. [0] And lastly bad amateurish programming languages can be ignored. They have little consequence on the whole of society. None of this is true for poor quality or fabricated news. It's easy to produce [1] and trivial to consume and share and thus it is everywhere, it encompasses every subject matter and thus nobody is well-qualified to judge a significant fraction of it, and the desire to believe in fabrications that align with one's own beliefs is wildly stronger than the desire to strongly commit to learning a new programming language. [0] https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2021/01/18/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2021/01/18/gell-mann-amnesia/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law