![]() The spread of social media would necessarily weaken authoritarian states and strengthen democracies - or, at least, that’s how the argument went. Social media allows rapid communication among large groups of disparate people, giving citizen activists new tools for organizing actions. ![]() Social media facilitates the swift spread of information, allowing citizens to easily get around government censors. Two years later, the Arab Spring protests showed the true power of these mediums, as protest movements that made skillful use of social media for coordination and messaging toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.Īt the time, the consensus among observers was that social media was, by its very nature, democratizing. In 2009, Iranians rose up to protest against a rigged election, the so-called “Green Movement” using Facebook and YouTube clips of protests to spread their message globally. Ten years ago, Deibert’s view - now widely shared among journalists and scholars - would have sounded absurd. ![]() “It seems undeniable,” Deibert writes, “that social media must bear some of the blame for the descent into neo-fascism.” Its most recent issue features an essay from Ronald Deibert, a political scientist and director of the University of Toronto’s tech-focused Citizen Lab, on the role of social media in modern politics. The Journal of Democracy is one of the premier academic venues for analyzing the current state of democratic politics. How the far right exploits social media Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s Facebook page on January 18, 2019. It seems we have to admit a somewhat uncomfortable truth: Social media, in the way that it’s used now, is an authoritarian medium. The very nature of how we engage with Facebook and the rest now helps far-right, authoritarian factions weaken the foundations of democratic systems - and even give themselves an easier pathway to seizing power. It is easier to spread misinformation on social media than to correct it, and easier to inflame social divisions than to mend them. These platforms, once seen as democracy’s ally, have increasingly become its enemy. Social media can certainly help pro-democracy movements at times, but they overall give far-right parties and authoritarians an advantage. ![]() Both the 2016 US election and the 2018 Brazilian vote proved social media is a perfect tool for this kind of activity. What’s gotten less attention is how authoritarian factions inside democratic states - far-right politicians and parties that are at best indifferent to democratic norms - benefit from the nature of modern social media platforms.Īuthoritarians of both sorts benefit from spreading falsehoods about their opponents, ginning up panics about minority groups, and undermining people’s trust in the independent media. Many observers have noted that entrenched authoritarian states, like Russia and China, have gotten very good at manipulating these platforms to marginalize domestic dissidents and destabilize democracies abroad. The glee Bolsonaro’s supporters exhibited points to a troubling development, one familiar to many Americans: Social media, once seen as a profoundly democratic technology, is increasingly serving the needs of authoritarians and their allies. This deluge, according to one Brazilian expert, played a role in Bolsonaro’s victory. False and damaging information about Bolsonaro’s left-wing opponent, including fake news mocked up to look like neutral fact-checks, spread like wildfire in the runup to the October 8 vote. During the campaign, a conservative pro-business interest group funded a massive disinformation campaign on WhatsApp (the popular messaging app owned by Facebook). They were crediting the platforms with their man’s victory, and they aren’t entirely wrong. “Facebook, Facebook, Facebook!” the crowd yelled. They weren’t cheering for Bolsonaro or his running mate or their party instead, they were reciting the names of social media platforms. ![]() At the inauguration of Brazil’s new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, in early January, a crowd of his supporters began a surprising chant. ![]()
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