MacDougall: Sugar-coating real news won't save Canadian journalism from big tech addiction

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News media are like vegetable sellers, whose product is unloved but necessary. Tech giants are sugar merchants, who keep feeding us sweets.

This, in a nutshell, is the problem Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez is trying to solve with the government’s increasingly malleableIn this analogy, the news media are the vegetable pushers, the people whose product is unloved but keeps democracy regular. And big tech are the sugar merchants, the people who don’t care how fat you get whilst eating their sweets , as long as you keep eating them.

Not that it’s our fault; in fact, we can’t help it. The tech platforms are designed to get us addicted to their sugar. We like new things. The platforms overwhelm us with new stuff, whether important or not. We prefer pictures over text. The platforms have shifted to image and now short-reel films. We respond to issues emotionally before we engage rationally. The platforms can detect our emotions and serve more stuff that winds us up.

Conspiracy theory? Fine. Porn? Fine. Goofy, made-up “news” about the Pope endorsing Donald Trump? All good, my tech brothers. Just keep scrolling or clicking the links.

 

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