What have they got to lose?

Gay marriage, contraception, porn, legal divorce? Just off the top of my head.

They also grew up in a time where the education budget was slashed over and over, even some states like Florida getting rid of history and sciences during trumps last presidency. No surprise there.

They also grew up during the pandemic so they might actually be less educated than Boomers.

As a Gen-X I will never blame the later generations. Especially Gen Z and younger, if I was in their shoes I'd be livid. You bring me into this mess and then tell me it's on me to fix it? F U

Turns out that growing up with a phone in their hand made a lot of them particularly susceptible to right-wing propaganda.

Watching TNG reruns nightly as an 8 year old really gave me some hope for humanity’s potential.

We were teenagers under dubya and the iraq war. Depending on how much the country swings into actual fascism this time, gen alpha might wind up standing for general anarchism

Well, TBF, the boomers helped bootstrap what Gen X was working with, and then there are the Elder Gods like Turing, Hopper, John McCarthy, Neumann, etc...

In any case, if someone thinks that learning computers means they can see through disinformation....LOLOLOL. This is exactly why I keep beating the drum for critical thinking and media literacy, steeped within a rich liberal (in every meaning of that term) educational program.

It's like every generation loses the ability to do something in computer technology that was just abstracted away somehow. I as a millennial have never soldered a PC mainboard (modding an Xbox doesn't count), but I'd say that otherwise, my understanding is pretty good. And I think all of my friends understand the concepts of files.

I recently asked someone about 10 years older if he knew what partitioning and formatting means in the context, and he knew, despite initially saying he has no clue about computers, to show someone 10 years younger (who didn't know) that such knowledge was just basically required back in the day. And it's not like these terms are obsolete, the concepts are still the same, even though we went from MBR to GPT and from FAT32 or whatever to better filesystems. It's no different for phones, but not required and even hidden.

I'd say generally, the technology userbase broadened while average knowledge in the group declined, however I'm not sure whether the absolute numbers of people with a certain knowledge level actually went down.

Algorithms ensure that the only content that ends up getting to your eyes is content that you already agree with for the most part. Or content that you hate so much that you have an incurable urge to respond to it with swearing and vitriol. (or at least that's why I think TikTok keeps giving me Maple Maga bullshit)

In other words, you can put up whatever you want but thanks to modern social media, the only people who will ever see it are the people who already agree with you.

That would require ongoing funding outside of election years. These are paid for by Mercers and Kochs or the Kremlin on the right, and i don't think Gates or Cuban is too eager to fund left-wing propaganda.

Why hasn’t there been a push to counter the propaganda on social media with social media?

Because the dems are also right-wing and have no credibility.

The actual left-wing is constantly pushing counter-narratives but without the massive funding of capital (eg. koch bros). No billionaire is going to fund a left-wing Prager U that talks about how billionaires are trash.

If you don't control the platform, it might just be wasted efforts, although I guess they could try. But it might be that those pulling the strings can be sure that virtually no one is reached.

Just replying to thank you for that glorious combo of terms. As the dirty migrant I am, I simply had to steal it for my username.

When the link snaps open the entire chain is broken.

It is up to every generation.