Passive vs Active exposure is more the problem. If I walk past a graffiti wall that has conspiracy theories on it along with everyone in my city, the effect on

Passive vs Active exposure is more the problem. If I walk past a graffiti wall that has conspiracy theories on it along with everyone in my city, the effect on my is very different from the post office choosing to deliver only pamphlets from conspiracy theorists to my mailbox instead of the mainstream newspaper. Actively targeting fringe ideas to people to the exclusion of other mainstream ideas is different from the general availability of ideas and lack of censorship. London has Speaker's Corner at Hyde park, for instance, where anyone is free to come and loudly discuss whatever crackpot ideas they have without censorship. Think it's been active for hundreds of years — but it does not overwhelm society because it allows the ideas to compete fairly on merit and evidence. Same for the salons of Paris, the tea shops of Calcutta and any other forums. The internet also had this mechanic during its beginning — anyone could say whatever they wanted on their geocities, myspace or livejournal, and all these ideas competed on fair terms with everything else. Social media is a different beast altogether. Actively pushing whatever ideas are algorithmically calculated to achieve engagement is not a fair fight.