Social Networks and Democracy: Problems and Dilemmas of Regulating the Digital Ecosystem

Yıl 2023, Cilt: 32 Sayı: 1, 15 - 33, 08.04.2023

Jose-ıgnacıo Torreblanca

https://doi.org/10.26650/siyasal.2023.32.1252061

Öz

The crisis of representative democracy is to a large extent a crisis of disintermediation. Its best known and most studied manifestation is expressed in the weakening of political parties and representative institutions and the link between them and the citizenry. However, the weakening of traditional media and the progressive replacement of their intermediary role between politics and citizens by social networks, although less studied, is of critical importance. This article analyses how the disintermediation of information facilitated by social networks aggravates the crisis of democracy. It shows how the characteristics of the digital ecosystem facilitate the spread of disinformation and fake news, erode citizens’ trust in the veracity of information and contribute to the undermining of representative democracy and its institutions. It also examines the regulatory strategies being adopted by democratic governments to restore the quality of public space and public confidence in the media and the dilemmas and difficulties they face in doing so.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Democracy, Social media, Mass Media, Disinformation, Fake News, Authoritarianism, Internet Governance, Freedom of Speech, Information-age, Public Sphere

Kaynakça

• Alandete, D. (2019). Fake News: la nueva arma de destrucción masiva. Madrid: Deusto.
• Alto Analytics (2019). Spain: Digital Public Debate Ahead of EU Parliamentary Elections. [Web log post]. Retrieved from: https://www.alto-analytics.com/en_US/blog/
• Arendt, H. (2017) [1967]. Verdad y mentira en la política. Madrid: Página Indómita.
• Arias Maldonado, M. (2017). Informe sobre ciegos: genealogía de la posverdad. In J. Ibáñez (Ed.), La era de la posverdad (pp.65-67). Madrid: Criterios.
• Barberá, P. (2018). Explaining the spread of misinformation on social media: Evidence from the 2016 US presidential election. Symposium: Fake News and the Politics of Misinformation. APSA Comparative Politics Newsletter. Retrieved from: http://pablobarbera.com/static/barbera-CP-note.pdf
• Biddle, S. (2018, April 13). Facebook uses artificial intelligence to predict your future actions for advertisers, says confidential document. The Intercept. Retrieved from: https://theintercept.com/2018/04/13/facebook-advertising-data-artificial-intelligence-ai/
• Berners-Lee, T. (2014, May 28). Necesitamos una Carta Magna para Internet. El País. Retrieved from: https://elpais.com/elpais/2014/05/14/opinion/1400069758_586516.html
• Bond, R., Fariss, C., Jones, J., Kramer A., Marlow, C., Settle, J., and Fowler, H. (2012). A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization. Nature, Letter, (489), 295-298. Retrieved from: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11421.
• Bradford, A. (2020). The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Briant, E.L. (2018). Three Explanatory Essays Giving Context and Analysis to Submitted Evidence. Retrieved from: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Dr-Emma-Briant-Explanatory-Essays.pdf
• Burnell, F.G. (2018). Making America First in the Digital Economy: the Case for Engaging Europe. The Atlantic Council. Retrieved from: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Digital_Economy_WEB.pdf
• Cardenal, J.P. (2020). Propaganda china para un escenario post Covid-19. Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina. Retrieved from: https://www.cadal.org/publicaciones/informes/?id=12779
• Carrer, G. and Bechis. F. (2020, March 30). Così la Cina fa propaganda in Italia, con i bot. Ecco l’analisi su Twitter di Alkemy per Formiche. Formiche. Retrieved from: https://formiche.net/2020/03/cina-propaganda-twitter-bot-alkemy/
• Colomina, C. (2019). La desinformación de nueva generación. Anuario Internacional CIDOB 61-66.
• Confessore, N., and Hakim, D. (2017, March 6). Data firm says 'secret sauce' aided Trump; many scoff. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/cambridge-analytica.html
• Corbyn, Z. (2012). Facebook experiment boosts US voter turnout. Nature, News and Comment No. 12. Retrieved from: https://www.nature.com/news/facebook-experiment-boosts-us-voter-turnout-1.11401
• Christl, W., Katharina, K., and Riechert, P.U, (2017). Corporate surveillance in everyday life. Cracked Labs: 6.
• Digiday Editors (2022). Here are the 2022 global media rankings by ad spend: Google, Facebook remain dominant — Alibaba, ByteDance in the mix. Retrieved from: https://digiday.com/?p=480387
• East Stratcom Task Force, (2020). EEAS Special Report Update: Short Assessment of Narratives and Disinformation around the COVID-19 Pandemic. Retrieved from: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/eeas-special-report-update-2-22-april/
• Edelman Trust Barometer (2019). 19th Annual Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report". Retrieved from: https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2019-02/2019_Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Global_Report.pdf
• Eurobarometer (2018). Fake news and disinformation online". Flash Eurobarometer 464. Retrieved from: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/2d79b85a-4cea-11e8-be1d-01aa75ed71a1
• European Commission (2018). Tackling online disinformation: a European Approach", Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Retrieved from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52018DC0236&from=EN
• European Commission (2019). Code of practice on disinformation: first annual reports - October 2019. European Commission.
• European Parliament Research Service (2015). Understanding propaganda and disinformation". European Parliament. Retrieved from: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2015/571332/EPRS_ATA(2015)571332_EN.pdf
• European Union (2016). Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and repealing Directive 95/46/EC. OJ-L-119 of 4 May 2016. Retrieved from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679
• Freedom of the Net (2019). The Crisis of Social Media. Retrieved from: https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/11042019_Report_FH_FOTN_2019_final_Public_Download.pdf
• Freedom House (2022). Freedom in the world 2022: The Global Expansion of Democratic Rule. Retrieved from: https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/FIW_2022_PDF_Booklet_Digital_Final_Web.pdf
• Gallup and Knight Foundation (2018). Indicators of news media trust: Retrieved from: https://knightfoundation.org/reports/indicators-of-news-media-trust/
• Garcia-Martínez, A. (2017, May 2). I'm an ex-Facebook exec: don't believe what they tell you about ads. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/02/facebook-executive-advertising-data-comment
• García Morales, V. (2020). Donde habitan las mentiras: libertades de expresión e información en tiempos de odio e hiperinformación. Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals, (124) 25-48. http://doi.org/10.24241/rcai.2020.124.1.25
• Ghebreyesus, T.A. (2020). Speech delivered at the Munich Security Conference on 15 February 2020, World Health Organization, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-1) Situation Report (85) p.2. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200415-sitrep-86-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=c615ea20_4
• Giddens, A. (2018, May 6). Una Carta Magna para la era digital. La Vanguardia. Retrieved from: https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20180506/443286426188/una-carta-magna-para-la-era-digital.html.
• Ghosh, D. and Scott, B. (2018). Digital Deceit: The Technologies Behind Precision Propaganda on the Internet. Harvard Kennedy School, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Retrieved from: http://medienorge.uib.no/files/Eksterne_pub/digital-deceit-final-update1.pdf.
• Ghosh, D., Abecassis, A., and Loveridge, J. (2020). Privacy and the Pandemic: Time for a Digital Bill of Rights. Foreign Policy. Retrieved from: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-pandemic-privacy-digital-rights-democracy/
• Goldhaber, M. H. (1997). The attention economy and the net. First Monday (2) No. 4 - 7. Retrieved from: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/519/440
• Gómez De Ágreda, Á. (2019). Mundo Orwell: Manual de supervivencia para un mundo hiperconectado. Barcelona: Ariel.
• Guess, A., Lyons, B., Montgomery, J.M., Nyhan, B., and Reifler, J. (2018). Fake news, Facebook ads, and misperceptions: Assessing information quality in the 2018 US midterm election campaign. Hanover: Dartmouth College. Retrieved from: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/fake-news-2018.pdf.
• Hanley, M., (2020). Salvaguardar el espacio informativo: las políticas de la UE y Ucrania ante la desinformación. Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals (124) 73-98. http://doi.org/10.24241/rcai.2020.124.1.73
• Hobbs, C. (2019). Can regulation save the Internet: The view from London. Commentary European Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from: https://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_can_regulation_save_the_internet_the_view_from_london
• Howard, P., Ganesh, B., Liotsiou, D., Kelly, J., and François, C. (2019). The IRA, social media and political polarization in the United States, 2012-2018. Project on Computational Propaganda. Retrieved from: https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/93/2018/12/The-IRA-Social-Media-and-Political-Polarization.pdf
• Human Rights Watch (2019). China's Algorithms of Repression: Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App. Retrieved from: https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/05/01/chinas-algorithms-repression/reverse-engineering-xinjiang-police-mass-surveillance
• Illing, S. (2018, April 8). Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm that might be a key Trump-Russia link, explained. Vox. Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/16/15657512/cambridge-analytica-facebook-alexander-nix-christopher-wylie
• Ingram, M. (2018). Most Americans say they have lost trust in the media. Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved from: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/trust-in-media-down.php
• Innerarity, D., and Colomina, C. (2020). Introducción: desinformación y poder, la crisis de los intermediarios. Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals, 124 (7-10). https:// doi.org/10.24241/rcai.2020.124.1.7
• Jackson, D. (2018). The "Demand Side" of the disinformation crisis. International Forum for Democratic Studies. Retrieved from: https://www.ned.org/issue-brief-the-demand-side-of-the-disinformation-crisis/
• Jeangène, J-P., Escorcia, A., Guillaume, M., and Herrera, J. (2018). Information Manipulation: A Challenge for Our Democracies. Report by the Policy Planning Staff (CAPS) of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM) of the Ministry for the Armed Forces, Paris, August.
• Kramer, A., Guillory, J., & Hanccock, J. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (111). 24. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1320040111
• Lanier, J. (2018). Diez razones para destruir las redes sociales. Madrid: Debate.
• Levin, S. (2017, May 1). Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure' and 'worthless'. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/01/facebook-advertising-data-insecure-teens
• Livingstone, S. (2018). Tackling the Information Crisis: A Policy Framework for Media System Resilience. L. S. E. Truth, Trust and Technology Commission. London: London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved from: http://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/assets/documents/research/T3-Report-Tackling-the-Information-Crisis.pdf
• López-Blanco, C. (2019). Wotan, la sociedad abierta y sus nuevos enemigos. Letras Libres. Retrieved from: https://www.letraslibres.com/espana-mexico/revista/wotan-la-sociedad-abierta-y-sus-nuevos-enemigos
• Mattis, James N. (2005). Future warfare: the rise of hybrid wars. Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, (131). Retrieved from: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2005/november/future-warfare-rise-hybrid-wars
• Meleshevich, K., and Schafer, B. (2018). Online information Laundering: The Role of Social Media. Alliance for Securing Democracy, Policy Brief. No.2. Retrieved from: https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/online-information-laundering-the-role-of-social-media/
• Milosevich, M. (2017). El poder de la influencia rusa: la desinformación. Analysis by the Real Instituto Elcano. Retrieved from: https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/analisis/el-poder-de-la-influencia-rusa-la-desinformacion/
• Ng, N., and Rumer, E. (2019). The West Fears Russia's Hybrid Warfare. They're Missing the Bigger Picture. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• Nye, J. (2005). Soft Power: The Means To Success in World Politics. Public Affairs.
• Paris Call (2019). Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace. Retrieved from: https://pariscall.international/en/
• Perrin, W. (2020). Implementing a duty of care for social media platforms, in Renewing Democracy in the Digital Age. Berggruen Institute. Retrieved from: https://www.berggruen.org/ideas/articles/implementing-a-duty-of-care-for-social-media-platforms/
• Persily, N. (2017). The 2016 US Election: Can democracy survive the internet? Journal of Democracy, 28 (2), 63-76.
• Persily, N. (2019). The Internet's challenge to democracy: Framing the problem and assessing reforms. Kofi Annan Foundation. Retrieved from: https://pacscenter.stanford.edu/publication/the-internets-challenge-to-democracy-framing-the-problem-and-assessing-reforms/
• Polyakova, A., Kounalis, M., Klapsis, A., Germania, S., Iacoboni, J., Lasheras, B., and de Pedro, N. (2017). The Kremlin's Trojan Horses: Russian Influence in Greece, Italy and Spain. Atlantic Council Eurasia Center.
• Reisinger, H. and Golts, A., (2014). Russia's hybrid warfare. Research Paper, NATO Defense College, 105.
• Rosenberger, L. and Howard, P. (2020). Disinformation and the Covid Crisis. Global Progress.
• Rutenberg, J. (2017, September 13). RT, Sputnik and Russia's new theory of war. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/magazine/rt-sputnik-and-russias-new-theory-of-war.html
• Sanovich, S. (2017). Computation Propaganda in Russia: The Origins of Digital Misinformation. Computational Propaganda Research Project, Working Paper No. 2017/3.
• Shepsle, K., and Weingast, B. (1981). Structure-Induced Equilibrium and Legislative Choice. Public Choice, 37(3), 503-519.
• SCSI (2018). An assessment of the Internet Research Agency's U.S.-directed activities in 2015-2017 based on platform-provided data. Retrieved from: https://disinformationreport.blob.core.windows.net/disinformation-report/NewKnowledge-Disinformation-Report-Slides.pdf
• Simpson, E., and Conner, A. (2020). "Digital Contact Tracing to Contain the Coronavirus". Center for American Progress. Retrieved from: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/technology-policy/news/2020/04/22/483521/digital-contact-tracing-contain-coronavirus/
• Soros, G. (2018). Remarks delivered at the World Economic Forum. Retrieved from: https://www.georgesoros.com/2018/01/25/remarks-delivered-at-the-world-economic-forum/
• Soros, G. (2019). Remarks delivered at the World Economic Forum. Retrieved from: https://www.georgesoros.com/2019/01/24/remarks-delivered-at-the-world-economic-forum-2/
• Thornhill, J. (2020, March 16). Facebook and the Fifth Estate must do more to fight misinformation. The Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/f1e8f098-6770-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3
• US v Elena Aleekseevna Khusyaynova (2018). Criminal Complaint. US District Court, Alexandria, Virginia. Case 1:18-MJ-464.
• Wylie, C. (2019). Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America. New York: Random.
• Yin, L., Roscher, F., Bonneau, N., and Tucker, J. (2018). Your Friendly Neighborhood Troll: The Internet Research's Agency's Use of Local and Fake News in the 2016 US Presidential Campaign. SPaPP Data Report 2018:01. Retrieved from: https://s18798.pcdn.co/smapp/wp-content/uploads/sites/1693/2018/11/SMaPP_Data_Report_2018_01_IRA_Links_1.pdf
• Zuboff, S. (2020, January 24). You Are Now Remotely Controlled. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/surveillance-capitalism.html
• Zuckerberg, M. (2019, March 29). The Internet need new rules: let's start in these four areas. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mark-zuckerberg-the-internet-needs-new-rules-lets-start-in-these-four-areas/2019/03/29/9e6f0504-521a-11e9-a3f7-78b7525a8d5f_story.html