'the impact of misinformation on the public imagination is much greater in a society built around a free and instantaneous system of communications' << are you sure this could be true? I would have thought, objectively, having a small number of gatekeepers who could manipulate public information flows -- which was basically how the media worked until relatively recently -- would be much more likely to increase the impact of misinformation on the public imagination. I'm not saying the internet solves all the problems of media gatekeepers and misinformation. Or that we don't have a problem. But I am not convinced the infrastructure is the problem. Or at the very least, it isn't the reason things are worse (if indeed they are worse).

-Lizzie