You may have grown weary about requests to click the subscribe button or join this and that newsletter, but they are the least you can do to allow for media outlets to remain independent and continue doing their primary work as the fourth pillar of democracy.

And after all these years, you may have also grown familiar with some of the problems we’re facing right now, from shrinking advertising revenue, censorship and government meddling to the hoaxes and misinformation.

Especially for the last problem, the solution should be easy for consumers of news; they could always rely on legacy publications, big names that they are already familiar with, sources that they have trusted for years.

Yet when it comes to the internet, the answer is not always that straightforward.

The advent of social media and the rise of big-tech platforms have made it difficult for the audience to get good ol’, fact-based journalism.

It has now been well-documented that big tech companies have long employed the type of algorithm that is tailored to the individual’s behaviors on the internet. The practice of tracking and collecting our online behaviors allows these tech giants to target us with only information that matches our preferences. Click on a cat photo once and you will get a constant stream of cat photos on your social media timeline.

But most of the time, we don’t only get cat photos.

The problem of misinformation is now so massive that we have in our hands today a prolonged pandemic resulting from people rejecting the idea of vaccination. Where do these anti-vaxxers congregate and exchange their false information? Social media platforms, for sure.

The tendency to pick information that generates the most visceral response has also resulted in social media and other tech platforms being populated by news and information produced and published by dubious media companies, whose reason for existence is only to monetize your outrage and vitriol.  

This (algorithmic) preference for content that only appeals to the lowest common denominator has resulted in the dumbing-down of journalism, which in the long run could have a ruinous effect on the whole media industry.

So, it is within this context that we need to support the legislative proposal to demand that big tech companies and social media giants be more responsible with how they distribute content on the internet.

We certainly don’t want control over what these platforms should publish or not, but there ought to be a commitment from these tech giants to prioritize good journalism. And as most members of the mainstream media are now struggling financially, making it easy for people to access their content should help their revenue stream.

Good journalism pays dividends in the long run.