This essays deals with how the Internet and Big Tech companies like social media platforms have shown to enhance democracy in some aspects, but have also undermined it, due to fake news, filter bubbles and echo chambers which negatively effect democracy as they influence the manner in which citizen...
The Internet’s capability of facilitating democracy was reawakened by global movements like
the Arab Spring, and many praised the Internet for its usefulness in technological social
communications which allowed activists to garner support against injustice and enable more
horizontal democratic decision making. It was also praised for its capability of enhancing
political engagement, government transparency and accountability, and democratisation of
information publishing. However, events like Trumps election displayed how online
information platforms were used as weapons to undermine the democratic processes it was
supposed to improve (Kuehn et al, 202: 2589). This essay will define what is fake news, how
it and social media was used to undermine the US 2016 election and democracy, and how filter
bubbles, echo chambers and hate speech undermine democratic engagement.
2. Fake news
After the 2016 US presidential election more people became concerned about fake news being
distributed in the political and academic spheres. Fake news is information which is
purposefully misleading or disinformation. Making it strikingly similar to propaganda. It is
characterised by, among many other things, its rapid sharing capability and misleading nature
(Kuehn et al, 2020: 2592). Fake news includes purposefully fabricated false news articles, with
the example of the article on the now-inoperative denverguardian.com website with the
headline "FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apparent murder-suicide.”
Fake news also includes articles originating from satirical websites which when read in
isolation on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, could easily be understood as factual and
true (Allcott et al, 2017: 213).
The internet and social media platforms do not distinguish between ill-intended propaganda
and well-intended information, and due to its high rate of rapid sharing an average user will
not be able to distinguish between the two. New data can be created and spread without any
time or money expense and the speed at which it can spread is unprecedented. For example, if
one person makes a post on their social media platform and has an audience of 100 people, five
people with the assumed same modest audience can share this post to their own audience,
resulting in the information being seen by 600 people. Therefore, whether the information
content is fake news or not, hundreds of people could see it and not know themselves
(Motupalli, 2017: 76).
3. Disinformation and social media
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