so, this is a better idea than censoring facebook and bailing out postmedia (which is what the liberals are.....can i say threatening to do, rather than promising to do?).

i have one thing to interject.

i doubt that bernie spends much time reading news on social media. it's a generational thing. and, that's ok. but, while he's right to point out that the advertising model on social media is lopsided, a lack of experience might be obscuring him to what is actually a natural monopoly. and, if you're a smaller independent news source, you don't want to focus on bought advertising - you want word of mouth. you want sharing. and, you want it organic.

small news organizations absolutely require robust social media presences to survive today, which doesn't even mean that they have great pages or that they pay into the system much. what it means is that they have people like me that are doing what i'm doing right now, which is posting one of their articles in a place where people will see it. it's not the paid-for advertising that's important, it's the free advertising that is - the sharing.

and, as such, breaking up these social media sites would just make it harder for small organizations to exist.

i just posted a link to manufacturing consent. i completely understand where he's coming from, and he's absolutely right in focus. but, it is in many ways an old media critique of new media, and it needs a bit of a cross-reference to be more robust.

https://www.cjr.org/opinion/bernie-sanders-media-silicon-valley.php