Do Social Media Threatens Democracy?

Social Media- Boon!!!

Oops

Bane to the Democracy

 

The meaning of democracy has taken a new concept. It’s not just about the ballet and having a face as your representative, they encourage or outrage his actions and they express it vividly.

Gone are those days when newspaper, television and magazines served as the platform for anyone and everyone to spread their word out and to let the world listen to their voices.

Today the world unites by social media; the most sought after and the most accessible platform for the masses. Social media, the platform which amplifies any and every cause manifold times and thus spread it to the masses within a fraction of time.

But, the major drawback about social media is the spread of untruth and the outrage which follows it. It makes the crowd go furious and come up with judgments on false grounds. Lack of fully fledged information, civility turns out to be the root cause of the outrage and ferocious mob.

Everyone across the globe knows about the spread of Russian misinformation online, which was heard by the US Senate; the discovery of internet profiteers regarding how to monetize the circulation of fake stories causing damage to Hillary Clinton. Also, who is unaware of the Weinstein storm ripping through the Westminster. Also the highly debated talk of the town- could America’s good cop and the bad cop routine ease the tensions with North Korea? 

It was the influence of the internet only which lead to the perfect exhibition of the weakening of two of the supreme and in fact major political parties over the past century. Also, the civil service which was too occupied undermining patronage and the rise of mass media which further was amending communication, empowering the donors who were independent of the parties and taking control over the direct primaries, leading the party bosses to come forward and pick nominees.

There are a few probable ways in which social media can directly hamper the ideology of democracy:

- Provoke and instigate the broadcast of civil society with the help of echo chambers and filter bubbles. The social media platform lets one surround with social feeds based on things he likes. The filter bubbles are infuriated by the personalization algorithms, based on the ideas expressed by the individual in the past. Talking about the Bretix Campaign and also US presidential elections; Facebook and twitter, both of them turned out to be unsocial media leading to undermining of public debate rather reviving it.

- Spread out of misleading and false information throughout the globe, which further leads to the amplification of populist and illiberal waves.

The internet eventually increases and encourages ideological segregation. Due to greater visibility and the highly accelerated viral cycles, the social media filter dissent out of the feeds and provide a disproportionate clot to the extreme opinions. Also, the online petitions attracts a lot of sentiment of numerous citizens. The politicians are in direct contact with their voters through Facebook, Twitter and a huge number of crowd takes part in public debates too; disclosing the dark side of social media. Also, populist parties uses automated bots, fake news and data driven manipulations and uses Facebook and twitter as a platform to address it to the masses.

- Consolidating the popularity with legitimacy with the help of creating competing realities which are driven by their algorithms henceforth twisting of the popularity and legitimacy.

- Being vulnerable to political capture and voter manipulation through enabling malicious actors to spread dis-information and secretly influence public opinion.

- Capturing unprecedented amount of data that can further be used to manipulate user’s behavior.

- Facilitation of hate speech, intolerance and public humiliation. That further targets the marginalization of the disadvantaged or the minority voices.

Apart from all the above mentioned facts, the other extreme concern is that only the one who is very passionate, outspoken and motivated gets heard from the entire lot. This doesn’t give a fairer chance to everyone. Every society needs to be governed by an amazing and well versed democratic body, which eventually acts as per the will of the population as a whole. Further when contradictory opinions starts showing up, then a more generic will eventually becomes the will of all the masses. Also, when the common masses reject and disapprove the acts and ideology of the government, their representative institutes too looses their representative power.

Furthermore, one should aim for making the internet a major tool for positive political contribution in the coming days. As, social media is the best tool for the ordinary man. It lets him set up the political agenda during the political campaigns too. 

So to overcome the challenges of the social media, instant measures should be taken. The social media companies and its publishers should be made accountable for whatever blinks on their respective platforms. The companies should become more and more transparent and further, should be treated as to be monopolies which requires breaking up.

Also, social media companies needs to adjust their respective sites, to make it clearer to the user regarding where the post is coming from. Is it from their friends or some other trusted source?

Along with these companies can come up with disclaimer and reminders of the harm that might incur because of the misinformation from the sharing of posts.

Today the technology has spread its roots in every hook and corner of the universe. And the everyday advances it is making on a constant or even accelerated pace. When oceanography can go up to the extent of ‘taking the pulse’ of the ocean, then definitely a lot can be done to improve and monitor what goes and comes around on social media platform. One has to compile and aggregate data from the numerous streams and eventually make it all transparent with the application of best computational and analytical tools to unravel the patterns and also detect the signals of change.

The data hence collected can be later provided to the experts and even the laypeople. Including all the policymakers, technology companies, journalist and citizens too of the political batch too, so that things can be looked and worked upon before the effect becomes so prominent that it can’t be undone or recovered from.

Today the voters’ perception too has changed; it has become more untethered from the reality. As per many debatable and complex reasons, today’s voter has stopped seeing the government as a tool which leads to the production and development of common good. Ironically, the voter is heading to the one who makes them at least feel good. Hence, the news one consumes today is more about emotions than facts. This results in the birth of vulnerability, into the roots of politics.

So, the need of the hour is to make the social platform so efficient that it becomes a boon for democracy!

References: - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5