The Wall_Spring 2023_Issue 9

is. Related to this is the issue of social and political fragmentation (the creation of echo chambers that limits political debate). Social media algorithms lead to an increased convergence of users with the same or similar political views, or in other words, the creation of echo chambers. Echo chambers result in individuals constantly having that their opinions validated, leading to the radicalisation of public opinions and the disruption of the democratic public sphere. Echo chambers, however, cannot be solely attributed to social media, as the same phenomenon can be seen in Google’s “page rank” algorithm that provides different users with different search results for the same Google search. By forcing people into echo chambers, social media prevents inter-opinion political discourse, harming democracy by increasing polarisation and making compromise harder. Overall, social media personalisation cannot entirely be blamed for narrowing citizens’ world view or the creation of echo chambers. There is an argument to be made that both of these things would have occurred regardless of social media, either as a consequence of socialisation or through

the mainstream media. However, it is difficult to attribute the endemic nature of both narrow world views and political fragmentation to anything but personalisation on social media, suggesting it poses some level of threat to democracy in the long term. Overall, social media poses a moderate threat to democracy. It increases political disengagement by distracting people from politics, as well as fomenting political indifference. If social media continues to do this then political disengagement will likely increase, potentially leading to a democratic deficit. Moreover, the fragmentation caused by social media could lead to a lack of nuance in political thought that wouldn’t otherwise be so prevalent. If this trend of extreme personalisation on social media platforms continues, it will only lead to further polarisation and eventually a reduced representation of moderate views.The saving grace is that people are becoming increasingly aware of its shortcomings and are thus able to

practice.

There are two ways in which personalisation can impact on individuals’ decision making: firstly, by narrowing their world views; and secondly, through social and political fragmentation.The first concern about personalisation is the algorithmic suggestion of certain content that both presents and reinforces a narrow and biased world view for each user.This makes it harder for citizens to access information that represents a range of sources and viewpoints. If social media users are only be shown information similar to content that they have liked before (same political affiliation, source, author), the main consequence of this is that it locks individuals into information bubbles. Information bubbles prevent individuals from developing themselves fully to act autonomously and thus express an informed political opinion. Secondly, personalisation may also distort citizens’ views about public issues because of a difficulty in identifying bias.With traditional media people are generally aware of the political affiliation of their source, making them more able to form a balanced opinion and thus participate effectively in the democratic process. However, when using social media, people are often unaware that the source of information they are accessing even has a bias, let alone what the bias

rectify the problem by obtaining information from a wider range of sources.

Artwork: Sienna Harriss, LVI

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