News used to inform our opinions. We consumed information, dissected it, and formed our opinions.

Social media has turned this process upside down. Now, we are informed by opinions, and form our news within digital echo chambers.

Take a look at the Facebook algorithm. It feeds us what we already believe. It prioritizes engagement over truth, making sensationalism more valuable than accuracy.

Look at Twitter. Hashtags replace headlines, and the most outrageous statements get the most retweets. Nuance is dead, buried under 280 characters of biased nonsense.

Consider the anti-vaccine movement. Social media platforms allowed pseudoscience to flourish. Opinions from unqualified influencers were given the same weight as peer-reviewed studies. The result? A public health crisis driven by ignorance and fear. And more than 500 Americans still die from it annually.

News outlets aren’t innocent either. We’ve adapted to this twisted arithmetic, prioritizing clicks over credibility. Headlines are crafted for shock value, not truth. Opinion pieces are passed off as hard news, blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

Social media has democratized the news, but at what cost? The marketplace of ideas has turned into a flea market of absurdity. We’ve traded informed debate for viral outrage.

We can reclaim our news. It’s time to consider funding news outlets the way we do libraries, which are experiencing their own rebirth. We have to treat news similarly. Truth should never cost money.

So demand it. Otherwise, we remain trapped in this perverted cycle where opinion reigns supreme and truth is left to fend for itself.