Big Tech Has Engineered the Triumph of Click-Bait in Media

What has changed is both how journalism makes money, and how articles are produced and shared.

Facebook. Photo: Unsplash

In the Balkans, where Facebook is the most-used social network, this tech giant, along with Google, have become a kind of landlord, renting out space to journalists.

But the benefits come at a price; media organizations have had to alter their journalistic standards to be able to exist and gain popularity in the digital world.

For years, Balkan journalists have fought for a media free of official influence and financial dependency on governments. Now they are realizing that they live in a different kind of dystopia, in which they are influenced and financially dependent on social networks and Internet browsers.

Interviews conducted with editors-in-chief and media experts across the Balkans reveal growing concerns that democracy and media freedoms in the digital era are endangered by big tech companies as much as by autocratic governments - if not more.

Hidden dangers of new financial model

"Nothing is for free. Not even information," warns Cristina Lupu, director of Romania's Center for Independent Journalism, a 25-year-old NGO that promotes media literacy and freedom of expression.

Cristina Lupu. Photo: Courtesy of Cristina Lupu

She says many people imagine news reports are created without any cost and effort. Not so, she says: "Every news article comes with a cost. If you are not paying for it, someone else is."

As Lupu explains, news is always paid for, directly or indirectly. Nowadays, both readers and journalists have free access to almost any journalistic content, because most media outlets rely on advertising to survive.

Some...