A group of very mentally ill, insecure people with a lot of material wealth control the internet and media.

They get to write the narrative.

We can analyze just one small tool in the belt of narrative control: censoring. If you've been warned or banned on Reddit, you can imagine how this works. If you've said something against the mold of what they allow, you will get censored. With so many people commenting, some subset of people will always say what you want to see. You censor or derank opinions you don't want, and boost opinions you want. This is a defensible form of writing a narrative without actually having to artificially write anything.

Of course with AI, you can now just write anything and seed ideas.

Give such sick people the reigns, and you get a false reality has little connection to what's really happening.

The internet is basically full of maladjusted people with sad lives. Strong chance that the post you read on HN, Reddit, X, etc is written by someone profoundly unhappy with their lot in life.

Not OP and not an expert but seems the aim is outrage which leads to more engagement and more advertising clicks, more followers and so on. Distorting news and social media from reality. I must say I too have found that people are nicer than what news portrays. I had the pleasure of being able to visit New York a few years and the people were just people and pleasant.