I feel your pain, but I wouldn't underestimate our current situation. This is much much bigger than we think it is. Forget about fake news, election interferences or Russian propaganda. The reality is much more chaotic, complex and dreadful than that.
What's wrong with that? I'm creating youtube videos because I know people are there, and the change I'm trying to create is to change people's minds. I can't change the way people consume media, so the only chance we've got is to adapt it and make change happen.
That's what I meant, "we" as society, as culture. Because people aren't just tweaking their stories. When you do this at a mass scale you have a responsibility as citizen. And as I pointed out, building fictional stories can lead to genocides and wars (we've already seen it). We all suffer from this.
This is exactly right. The scope of social media is greater. It's a status show where your stuff isn't just in your living room but out there for you to “show off” to the world and compare it with others. This ultimately builds our story, our culture, that's when everybody believes a particular story and leads to the madness of crowds.
There are so many different paths this discussion can take. But what's for sure is that everything is going to the extremes--there's no middle ground here.
You're right. This isn't new. It started way back with advertising. The problem is the scope it's getting right now--we no longer have an active role on this process.