From Edward Bernays’ 1923 book Crystallizing Public Opinion:
While the ‘moral and spiritual’ writing to inculcate a ‘public conscience’ that Bernays describes exists on the Internet today, it is very hard to find.
There are relatively few destinations to discover newness on the Internet today, and they are all heavily optimized to capture and retain attention, not necessarily promote variety and depth. Publishing on the Internet has, in response, optimised these algorithms, which have in turn learnt.
The Internet, as viewed through the lens of its gatekeepers, is a cultural beige.