# Social Media Gave Birth to Fake News When Facebook graduated from being a walled-off social platform where college kids exchanged drunk photos for laughs (back then you actually had to have a university e-mail address to sign up), to a place where people inform themselves about the daily events and politics, it turned from a social platform to mass media, and fake news was born simply because Facebook couldn't compete with the editorial integrity of its elders (TV, print, etc.). That integrity is due to two things. One is simply the fact that its competitors have had the time to mature (it might be getting there now, see [Facebook Unveils Details of its Content Oversight Board](https://www.economist.com/business/2020/01/30/facebook-unveils-details-of-its-content-oversight-board)), and the other is that up until now the role of opinion leaders i.e. influencers in today’s lingo, was reserved for the elite. With social media, every kid on YouTube can become one. This comes from the theory that opinions are formed in a [[Two-Step Flow]], where people are influenced by opinion leaders, who in turn are influenced by mass media. ![[Enlightenment and the Righteous Mind Steven Pinker & Jonathan Haidt#^f8u1ne]] Additionally, because [[Social Media Algorithms Are Designed to Maximize Engagement]], they are optimized to spread sensationalism and outrage, and not necessarily the truth.