The use of social media to receive news feels to many like a desirable alternative to the doomscrolling other sources offer. When you open Twitter and go to the News tab, you are met with a variety of stories all with different levels of seriousness. The top story today is "Volkswagen's April Fool's day joke didn't go to plan". However, if you scroll a few articles down you will see an article covering a mass shooting in California. This choice of formatting allows the user to not feel as bogged down by negative news, a complaint I personally have about my current methods of news consumption. Twitter also hopes to simplify the stories for their users, offering a short blurb, an optional link, and the ability to scroll down and see the public's perception of the issue. It is clear that Twitter's main priority is making checking the news a casual activity that doesn't overly depress their users.
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https://twitter.com/explore/tabs/news_unified
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