Edit: I'm sorry for the lengthy post, but I felt giving rough examples was necessary to convey the point.

It's true that some unofficial quality voices are disrupting established narratives ... but I'm sorry to say this isn't the shift that matters, because 99% of the 'unofficial sources' are considerably worse than just 'bullshit' in the press.

The 'Giant Kraken Monster' of fake news is really shocking, and it's taking over some sectors. I couldn't quite fathom it until I saw it happen to someone in my own life.

While we argue about 'truth' here on HN, information is being submerged by nonsense on mainstreet.

It's not so much war between civil people arguing over the facts - it's more like Information World War Z of people hopped up on very bad, made up information.

I was at a relative's home a few days ago listening as a he was listening to his Facebook stream and it was very shocking.

I'm paraphrasing from memory, but:

"Tanks will Roll, Power Cut, the Great Reset and Trump will be re-instated by Coup on Aug 10 ..."

"I have a source, who cannot be named, because his life would be in danger, that Nanci Pelosi was in direct contact with the Chinese Communist Party on January 6 directing the assault on Capitol Hill"

"Those that stole the election, put them ballot boxes full of fake votes for Biden, they need to be executed for treason, the True Patriots Will Rise"

"It's masks now, folks, but this is the globalist master plan, it's just the first step. This is the reason the second amendment exists, folks"

"Big Pharma does NOT want you to know about natural cures, because, well, why do you think? You are the experiment folks. The Sheep out there doing what the government tells them - but the Lions, the True Patriots, know better."

"Q said:" - and then a bunch insane of statements from QAnon etc.

It's dizzyingly conspiratorial and it's really scary to watch people eat that up. My family member indicated that they don't believe most of it, but that's their primary news source and, it has affected them greatly.

My family member is becoming an information zombie who is losing their grounding in reality, and cannot be reasoned with on these issues, even if they are quite rational otherwise. Once you start to believe cabals of the elite are killing children in basements in blood-lust ceremonies, that mysterious Q controls things behind the scenes, that vaccines i.e. life-saving medicines are invented as a tool of control, and that of course all of the 'main stream media outlets' are all lying, then what?

Watching them listen - it's like a form of information hypnotism - it's as though they're in a mystical / religious trance. If someone already has a reason to actually 'want to believe', and they don't care, and they just 'let go of rationality' ... then they fall into the trap. I think it's the same kind of programming that cults use.

It's really a sight to behold, and the experience of how the information is communicated, the anger, the tone of voice, etc..

The MSM has a problem with bias that could stand to be corrected, and it's have more quality 'outside' voices, but even some of the better sources often falter. Matt Taibi, probably in the same vein of the author of this piece about 'BS', usually has some great things to say but I feel even he is jumping the shark a bit trying to get attention to his Substack with overzealous headlines.

In order to put this into relative context, here is some polling data from Pew [1][2] which shows a material minority of Americans are susceptible to even the more over the top conspiratorial information (i.e. QAnon), for less egregious but nevertheless still completely false information, I believe the number is much higher, reaching up to 30% for those who believe that the election was fraudulent [3].

[1] https://www.journalism.org/2020/09/16/most-americans-who-hav...

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/16/5-facts-abo...

[3] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/559402-one-third-of-am...