Is Social Media a Threat to Democracy? INTRODUCTION: Framing the Problem It is becoming increasingly apparent that fundamental principles underlying democracy—trust, informed dialogue, shared sense of reality, mutual consent, and participation—are being put to the test by certain features and attributes of social media; they have disrupted our public square. As these platforms achieve financial success by monetizing public attention, it is worth examining some of the key issues and unintended consequences arising as a result. By any meaningful measure, the category we refer to as “social media” today encompasses massive scale. These platforms are pervasive, and fully and effectively integrated into the public discourse and lives of individuals. By 2017, for example, Facebook-owned platforms already reach 86% of Internet users aged 16 to 64 in 33 countries and effectively act as the gateway to the Internet, if not the Internet itself.3 In a sense, Facebook is becoming the world’s largest news source; 44% of people across 26 countries surveyed say they use it for news. Similarly, Pew’s analysis shows that in the U.S., two-thirds of Facebook users (66%) get news on the site, nearly six out of ten Twitter users (59%) get news on Twitter, and, highest, 70% of Reddit users get news on that platform. Similar trends exist for 18-to 24-year-olds and users in emerging economies such as the Philippines and Myanmar.4 Facebook has boasted about the amount of a user’s daily attention it captures, and as we learn more about the new “attention economy,” this issue is missioncritical. Google has already commoditized search, email, storage and arguably, information—in many instances, disrupting economies and longstanding arrangements. The advantage social media platforms such as Facebook and Google have in monetizing attention accrues from their unprecedented and large-scale collection and analysis of personal data. Less sanguine is the use of behavioral and psychographic profiling, which can be harvested to deliver personalized content and advertising—much of which is unregulated and invisible to all but the recipient.5 A 2016 survey by Reuters Institute of 50,000 users in 26 countries found that 51% use social media as a source of news each week. 4 More than a quarter of 18-to 24-year-olds (28%) say social media is their main source of news—more than television (24%) for the first time. More so in Europe than in the U.S., one argument goes that these platforms have evolved to effectively become media 3 © Copyright The Omidyar Group 2017. All rights reserved. It could be argued that this exceptionally clear line to monetization dominates their operating logic, their community architecture, and their decision-making. The business model is simple: capture attention, then monetize it through advertising. However, the effects of social media on public discourse, civility, and fact-based debate—given the massive scale—necessitate increased attention to its impact on democracy. The early optimism about social media’s potential for democratizing access to information, and giving voice to those who were traditionally marginalized or censored, is eroding. Indeed, as social media platforms have grown, they have been accused of: • Exacerbating the polarization of civil society via echo chambers and filter bubbles • Rapidly spreading mis-and disinformation and amplifying the populist and illiberal wave across the globe • Creating competing realities driven by their algorithms’ intertwining of popularity and legitimacy • Being vulnerable to political capture and voter manipulation through enabling malevolent actors to spread disinformation and covertly influence public opinion • Capturing unprecedented amounts of data that can be used to manipulate user behavior • Facilitating hate speech, public humiliation, and the targeted marginalization of disadvantaged or minority voices This paper seeks to explore these issues and identify questions that need to be considered if we are to ensure our media structures serve democratic ends. firms, that their strategies and decisions may now be interpreted as editorial decisions, and they should be regulated accordingly. 5 As noted above, these companies also deliver valuable services which we now take for granted—free search, free connection and community, free email and messaging, free storage, etc.—in return for such data collection. PAGE 5