3.3 Positively 4th Estate

Barely days after Facebook began trialing a news feature on its app Tom and Dan talk about the journey the company is on, from content agnostic charnel house to halfway convincing approximation of a civil public sphere. What does the platforms' emerging compromise with elected politicians, legacy media and the secret state look like? And how do we stop it? We also talk about Ofcom’s recent review of the BBC, the difference between quantity and quality in news coverage, balance in theory and practice, and Rupert Murdoch, the GOAT in the production and dissemination of fake news. We end with a bungling attempt to persuade our listeners to like and subscribe. Music by Makaih Beats.