Is Social Media Destroying Democracy?

Name
Instructor's name
Unit; code
Date
Investigating how Social Media affects democracy
Technology has continued growing in the current generation, and with it comes several impacts. The most significant impact of it all has been the development of social media. One of the most well-liked and widely used forms of communication in the world right now is social media. It has transformed how we communicate and made it simpler for people to exchange ideas and opinions (Siva, pg. 79). Millions of people have used it. As a result, it has grown in importance as a tool for political discourse. The issue of whether or not social media is harming democracy has, however, generated much discussion (Chambers, pg. 3). Social media has the potential to be both a powerful tool for democratic discourse and a detriment to the democratic process. Social media threatens democracy by fostering echo chambers, creating online hate speech, polarizing peoples’ political views through conducting government surveillance and microtargeting that focuses on making political commentary that glorifies certain political parties.
Social media's ability to foster echo chambers is one way it can undermine democracy. An "echo chamber" effect results from people following accounts and engaging with content that supports their beliefs and opinions; this can cause political polarization and spread false information because people become insulated from opposing viewpoints (Jungherr et al., pg. 39). Online trolls and hate speech are other problems with social media. People can now quickly disseminate hateful and polarizing messages. The democratic process may suffer due to the hostile and unwelcoming environment it now fosters (McKay and Tenove, pg. 5). Social media can undermine democracy by enabling false information and propaganda by political campaigns. Political campaigns can use social media too.
The current social media model equally threatens democracy by polarizing peoples’ political views. Government Surveillance through social media platforms has been more evident than in the current times. Citizens' ability to state their honest views on various political issues is being slowly taken down. Once someone sides with political agendas that do not favor the government, such individuals are slowly profiled and close monitoring of their content happens afterward. Due to fear and immense coercion from the government, such individuals end up pulling down their content (Siva, pg. 99). democracy exists in a space where there is autonomy of thought and expression. Once that is taken away then, then democracy's existence is obviously threatened. In China, censorship is getting stricter. Through apps like WeChat, Weibo and Youku, the China government can mak...