Most commentators blame it on the democratic principle that anyone can share news on a social network -- the New York Times and Evan Prodromou's Blog equally -- and of course, since most people are knuckle-dragging morons, they will slop like hogs over those hilarious and amazing posts from EP and ignore the important official propaganda that their social betters have kindly prepared for their edification at the NYT.
Very few commentators note how abominable the user experience for news is on social networking software.
Content is almost never shared in full by reliable sources on social networks. You get a headline, some click-baity image, and about 10 words of the lede, cut off mid-sentence.
There is a high cost to clicking on the link. You lose the social context that you're in, and pop out to the Web site or app for the specific publication.
Also, paywalls -- you may not be allowed to read the full article. Or stroboscopic ads.
Finally, comments are either closed or anonymous -- it's hard to interact with the story, the author, or other readers on the publisher's web site. So, you have to find your way back to the social networking post and give your likes, comments, or shares there. Hopefully you can just back-button away, but sometimes not.
Many social network users make the conclusion that it is a bad idea to try to read the whole article (paywall, not interactive, abusive ads, lose your place in the social network interface) and just respond to the headline, clickbait image, and 10 words of the lede instead. Given the UX provided, this is a very rational step.
Maybe, if we actually want to have better-informed citizens, we should make a better news interface. The full story should be included in social networking posts (including images). Interactivity should be integrated with the reading experience -- not fully separate.
The economic model of social news -- that social networks include minimal information to generate clicks for ad-supported or paywalled Websites or apps -- is clearly not working. We should consider using more integrated models where the news is in the platform, not separate from it.
I think that public broadcasters can lead the way on this. If they don't rely on ads on their sites, they can include their full content in social networking posts -- not just a link.
But it's also possible to include a subscription model into social networks. You can't follow Publication X unless you make a payment, either in-band or out-of-band. It's how the newsletter market works, after all.
Even advertisements can work to some extent in full-content posts, although you don't easily get the same level of targeting as with the click-through model.
We have a great opportunity to make the social news experience much better on the Fediverse.
I know that I'm a techno-utopian, but I believe that having more voices in the conversation is a net good, not a net evil.
Evan Prodromou