6 Policy Brief No. 93 Toda Peace Institute against democracy, peace, and social cohesion. Toda published local case studies of social media impacts on conflict dynamics in diverse countries on every continent, including Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Jordan, Egypt, and Northern Ireland.15 Similarly, Build Up conducted a study Analysing refugee-host community narratives on social media in Lebanon.16 The study found that social media acts as a ‘magnified mirror’ of societal tensions, impacting perceptions of issues between refugee and host communities. Mercy Corps published a study on The Weaponization of Social Media that identified a range of news stories around the world indicating technology’s role in the conflict. 17 And the Freedom House report on The Crisis of Social Media described the decline in democracy as related to the increase in social media, noting “What was once a liberating technology has become a conduit for surveillance and electoral manipulation.18 Fourth generation: Advocacy with Tech Companies and Government Regulation By the late 2010s, academics and civil society groups began to realise that the fundamental business model of social media companies depended on user addiction: keeping users on their platforms longer by capturing their attention. The content most likely to keep someone on a platform includes emotionally heightened content that generates anger or outrage,19 content that emphasises ingroup identity formation through hateful content towards other groups, 20 false information, and conspiracy theories aimed to disorient and confuse the public. The algorithms that fuel these platforms learn what people like and feed them more content that is similar. This “algorithmic” extremism is baked into the social media profit model.21 Civil society increased its advocacy to governments to fix these problems. Civil society groups proposed that governments mandate social media risk audits and impose special taxes or other penalties for negative tech impacts on society. In 2018, some European countries passed legislation requiring social media companies to quickly remove hate speech or disinformation and to increase privacy.22 Social media companies have lobbied “Social Media Impacts on Conflict Dynamics: A Synthesis of Ten Case Studies & a Peacebuilding Plan for Tech”. L. Schirch. Toda Peace Institute. Policy Brief #73. May 2020. For more information on Toda Peace Institute’s local case studies see https://toda.org/policy-briefs-and-resources/social-media-technology-and-peacebuilding.html 16 Jacob Lefton, Maude Morrison, Mira Al Mawla, Helena Puig Laurarri. “Analysing refugee-host community narratives on social media in Lebanon. Written by Build Up for UNDP, February 2019. 17 “The Weaponization of Social Media.” Seattle, Washington: Mercy Corps. 2019. 18 Adrian Shahbaz and Allie Funk. “The Crisis of Social Media.” Washington DC: Freedom House, 2019. 19 Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman. “What Makes Online Content Go Viral.” Journal of Marketing Research. 2011. 20 See these two studies: Matthew Barnidge. “Social Affect and Political Disagreement on Social Media.” Social Media and Society. 3 September 2018; Karyn Amira, Jennifer Cole Wright, Daniela Goya-Tocchetto. “In-Group Love Versus Out-Group Hate: Which Is More Important to Partisans and When?” Political Behaviour. 20 June 2019. 21 There is wide public conversation and scholarship on algorithmic extremism, and how social media companies profit from hate speech, conspiracy theories and other false information. For a review of this dynamic, see other Toda Peace Institute policy briefs such as Lisa Schirch. “Social Media Impacts on Social and Political Goods.” Toda Peace Institute, October 2018. 22 Counter Extremism Project. 2018. "European Commission's Proposal on Terrorist Content Needs to Protect EU Citizens." Tech and Terrorism Roundup, 18 September 2018. 15