Is social media a democracy?
On the supposed democratisation of speech brought about by social media.
Amidst the endless criticisms of the most popular social media platforms (they’re a haven for far-right extremists, they’re contributing to the erosion of democratic institutions, they facilitate misinformation and political violence), you’ll often find people singing their praises for the way they serve as a sort of virtual ‘public square’ (in before Mark Zuckerberg makes the Facebook newsfeed a literal public square in the metaverse), and the way they’ve democratised speech so that anyone, regardless of their platform, can be heard.
But is that actually true?
It’s certainly true that anything and anyone can go viral - it’s difficult to find a consistent pattern between what goes viral and what doesn’t, with so much of it coming down to luck and posting the right thing at the right time - but it’s also true that certain people have much larger platforms than others, which has the potential to create power imbalances and even discourage people from utilising their own platforms to speak up.
A few years ago, I found myself having to explain to a B-list television actress why her insistence on quote-tweeting anyone who disagreed with or critiqued her inevitably opened them up to abuse from her legions of fans. Apparently, the thought hadn’t occurred to her before then, which is actually very on-brand considering the character she’s best known for playing.
In addition to sending verbal abuse to anyone she quote tweeted, fans would rush to assure her that she was not in the wrong, could never be in the wrong, was perfect and beyond reproach, etc. When surrounded by sycophants, even the mildest criticism feels like a personal attack.
In her first message to me, she wrote, “Hi I’ve deleted our entire correspondence so you don’t get any shit from my followers. I didn’t know that’s what happens. I will stop replying to anyone who criticizes me and just swallow it as I do have a bigger following. Everything I do seems to be wrong, so I’m just gonna shut up and take the beating and hope to do better in future.”
While the tone sounds contrite, and the closing note of “hope to do better in the future” sounds decent, it’s actually a fairly emotionally manipulative message, framing herself as the victim despite her literal millions of followers, fame, decently-placed connections, and money. For context, this actress is known for her “body positive” activism, and this message was sent after several fat activists pointed out inconsistencies in her message. Holding each other to account is an important part of activism, but when a power imbalance exists like the one between a celebrity and a commoner, it becomes incredibly difficult to have the kinds of honest conversations required to learn and grow as people and as activists.
I was reminded of this interaction again this week when a lawyer and activist with almost 50,000 followers subtweeted a friend of mine with just over 500 followers. It’s too complicated and messy to get into the entire back story; suffice to say, they disagreed about how best to support a cultural boycott and encourage and persuade others to do the same.
My friend asked the lawyer and activist if she was the subject of her tweets, which she then confirmed by quote tweeting her. Unfortunately, because my friend is a Black woman on the internet, and she dared to disagree with someone with a much larger platform, this ended up devolving into people sending her racist abuse via DM for the crime of disagreeing with their Fave.
While everyone described in this post has the exact same access to the exact same internet, our experiences vary wildly, thanks to our different platforms and identities. Instead of functioning as a ‘marketplace of ideas’, social media too often can be reduced to a space where whoever has the most friends and supporters wins, something like the primary school playground. Arguments can’t stand on their merits when whether they’re supported or not relies so entirely on whether people like the person who has made them.
You might want to point out that this isn’t particularly new, that arguments have always been assessed by many people based on whether they confirm their existing biases or whether they generally like the speaker. And you’d be right! But I haven’t seen as many people argue that traditional newspaper columns are democratic spaces, or that publishing is.
While social media might be an improvement over these more traditional spaces, as evidenced by the virality of movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, it is far from a democracy where all voices are valued equally. And if people with large platforms refuse to become more mindful about how they use those platforms and potentially weaponise them in order to silence critics, I can’t see that changing any time soon.