Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times continues the media’s examination of how social media is reshaping marketing and branding. Manjoo notes that social media warriors have taken down what previously had been considered untouchables – people like Uber’s Travis Kalanick and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

To see why, we must first understand why brands are suddenly more vulnerable to consumer sentiment than they once were. It all comes down to one thing: Social media is the new TV.

In the era when television shaped mainstream consumer sentiment, companies enjoyed enormous power to alter their image through advertising. Then came the internet, which didn’t kill advertising, but did dilute its power. Brands now have little say over how their messages get chewed up through our social feeds.