A Quinnipiac University poll asked U.S. registered voters to select one of four options to blame for the divisions in the country. Overall, 35 percent blamed social media, 32 percent blamed political leaders, 28 percent blamed cable news channels and only 1 percent blamed other countries.
And social media existed then! In fact, the antivax stuff pretty much lines up directly with the creation of social media.
Well yeah, that’s my point, social media was new at that time when antivax was a meme, now it’s mainstream. Social media just allowed stupid people to spread stupidity at an alarming rate, then we as a society learned how to manipulate effectively through social media. It’s not like social media is some force of nature that accidently fucked up society. Social media is a tool that the richest and worst people in society used to fuck up society.