A. In the pre-digital era, the dissemination of news was largely governed by human 'gatekeepers'. Editors and journalists at established newspapers, television networks, and radio stations made crucial decisions about which stories were newsworthy and how they should be presented to the public. This system, while not without its own inherent biases, provided a relatively consistent, shared body of information for entire communities. Today, the primary gatekeepers are no longer human; they are complex, opaque algorithms developed by technology companies. This fundamental shift from human editorial judgment to automated curation on platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok has coincided with a precipitous decline in public trust in journalism, a phenomenon that warrants close examination. B. At their core, the algorithms that power social media news feeds are not designed with the civic purpose of creating an informed citizenry. Their primary objective is commercial: to maximize user engagement. They achieve this by meticulously tracking user behaviour—every like, share, comment, and even the duration for which a user's gaze lingers on a piece of content. This data i…
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