This is a bad question: Is Social Media Bad for Democracy? Yet this is precisely the sort of thing America is spending it’s time on.

Why is it a bad question?

It’s a bad question because it makes people argue about how it helps or hurts democracy, and is yet another distraction from looking at the true nature of democracy.

Who’s arguing?

In June of 2018, 4 people debated this question on Intelligence Squared, a media company that hosts debates.

Two people said social media was good for democracy. They pointed out that in places with little or no democracy, new voices were being heard, more people were able to connect with each other and some new politicians were able to reach larger audiences. Plus, an effort by Facebook was attributed to getting out more voters in one election (though they didn’t make an effort in 2016.)

Two others said social media was bad for democracy. Yes, the new communication in non-democratic places was interesting, but it didn’t actually lead to democracy. Their main point was that we’ve had social media for about 15 years, and for the last twelve, the worldwide level of democracy has been lessening. They argued that it allowed Russia to taint democracy in the US and actually change the election results, that Trump wouldn’t have won without Russian interference tipped the scale in 3 key states that cost Clinton the election.

The audience sided with the nay-sayers, that social media was bad for democracy. The actual debate contest was determined by how many people changed their support between the first and second rounds and the nays won this, too, gaining 6% of those who were initially convinced by those saying social media was good, and 83% of the undecideds.

What’s wrong with this bad question?

What’s wrong with the question is that we don’t really have democracy. Social media is bad for dysfunctional systems. Since democracies don’t function well politically, social media upsets them. America’s democracy has been increasingly failing. Recall that the 2014 Princeton study found that America hadn’t been functionally a democracy for over 30 years.

Without having a solid foundation for Democracy, a country is susceptible to being influenced by ideologues, populists, and wealthy people, media, corporations and foreign countries. Social media merely adds another way for these groups to reach people, so it’s a further destabilizing influence.

What should we be doing?

The real question we should be talking about is: How do we make democracies work? But of course, I’ve been writing about that for years. If you haven’t read my series about our blind spots, you should start there. And please, join our mailing list.