I think this is the bigger problem, separating out the real news from the fake **** and the bots. And like you say, the soundbite, bitesize snips of info that don't give any context or deeper analysis. It's too easy for somebody on social media to post an inflammatory headline and before anybody has bothered to check the facts, it's gone viral. I think in some respects, my generation had it easier when I was a kid. You had BBC, ITV and then later Channel 4. So everybody was seeing the same news and could make an informed decision on it. There was a youtube channel that I watched with my daughter when she was quite young, called Bill's channel, it was a bloke who presented stories/memes etc to kids and then asked if it was real or fake. It was done in a really kid friendly way and it's given my daughter a good critical thinking approach to stuff that she sees on the internet.
I also think AI is a problem, or could become a bigger problem. Especially with deep fake technology. At what point do you realise you're being duped, when a familiar face is on the TV talking, but it's all computer generated....
And Russia plays it all, they and China ****ing own the internet, and the western govts have let it happen. Became quite obvious from about 2014 (around the time Russia invaded Ukraine) that something was going on when the majority of sexbots in youtube chat channels switched to nationalism and started promoting Brexit and Trump. Divide and conquer.
