Digital media – a threat to democracy? The evidence is piling up.

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Tea@programming.dev⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.mpg.de/24519906/digital-media-a-threat-to-democracy

Digital media such as social media, messenger groups or comment columns in online media have a predominantly negative influence on political processes. They can encourage populist movements, increase polarization and undermine trust in institutions.

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Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It’s not the technology, it’s the businesses interests behind such technology.

We live in a time of robber barons and these are just their tools

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- SoupBrick@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Profiteering off of outrage? Say it ain’t so!
  
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wuzzlewoggle@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I’m glad this is finally being looked at because I’ve been saying this for years and I feel like the vast majority doesn’t realize how bad this is.

If you look at social media use and the rise of the far right over the last 15 years, they pretty much go hand in hand. Sure, that isn’t proof for anything, but it’s alarming and needs to be studied further.

In Germany, we have safeguards that prevent a single media outlet to gain too much power over controlling the public opinion. We have this for TV stations, news papers etc. Just not social media. Because social media wasn’t even on the horizon when this law was put in place.

I think it’s insane that we just let foreign profit driven companies steer the public opinion and discourse in our society and we finally have to start to heavily regulate them.

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- Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  I think where social media is particularly insidious is the use of algorithms.
  
  No normal person wakes up and thinks “I think we should bring back the Nazis”, but like a post on Facebook about Remembrance Sunday or patriotism or even just catapults, and suddenly you’re on a fast track to white supremacist groups.
  
  I’ve seen people go from chewing out a stranger in the supermarket for whining about foreigners, to spreading made up rumours about immigrants killing white girls.
  
  In the past you’d hear about hate groups when they’re marching through London in Union Jack T-shirts, smashing curry shop windows. Social media lets people in on the bottom rung and ride it to that point.
  
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  - witten@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I’m not defending social media or its algorithms, but you’ve also got to look at what predated it. People used to get their news and information from news anchors and newspapers that were mouthpieces for capitalists and conservatives. So maybe not as extremist or even as effective at influence as a social media algorithm, but still not great. Personally, I don’t want to go back to relying on corporate news outlets either.
    
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  - wuzzlewoggle@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Well put, this is exactly the problem. I remember the early days of facebook, twitter and instagram when there were no algorithms and your feed was just posts by people you follow in chronological order. Discourse was much more tame back then. We urgently need stricter laws that regulate these algorithms.
    
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- orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  [deleted]
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  - wuzzlewoggle@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Corellation is not causation but in this case it is very suspicious and studies like these show that there might be causation That’s why I said it’s not proof but needs to be studied further.
    
    And yes, of course I mean centralized, profit driven social media. But that is the overwhelming majority of social media.
    
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Broadfern@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
“Digital media” is a hell of a weird way of saying “capitalism”

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Kyrgizion@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I thought this was pretty mega fucken clear at this point.

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- arakhis_@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  albert einstein quote about human stupidity
  
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- sfxrlz@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Pretty maga clear
  
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oxysis@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Stop with the dumb questions already. The answer is any social media platform with inherent interests in selling user data or selling ads are willing to trade anything for more money now. If democratic processes get in the way then so be it to these wastes of oxygen. Now let’s start asking some meaningful questions please.

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gargolito@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
This is like looking at roadkill and declaring “cars are a threat to road crossing critters”.

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Amoxtli@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Without digital media, we wouldn’t see genocide in Gaza.

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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Yeah that’s what these libs are missing. As members of the ultra-privileged classes, they assume that everything is great. But as people are exposed more to actual reality, they don’t want to destroy the planet, genocide people, etc. Nor should they. But this is a direct threat to liberal privilege. Chuck and Nancy want that economy booming until the planet is burning.
  
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- StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  But you especially wouldn’t in a dictatorship.
  
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NightCrawlerProMax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
I think foreign countries take advantage of free speech, free press and social media to influence voters in a specific direction. China is one of the major players of this game without any downsides because they have high censorship with domestic replacement apps. All of the popular western apps and sites are banned as well.

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Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Where have you been since 2016

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Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Bullshit. It’s not about digital. It’s about who owns it.

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iAvicenna@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
since at least 10 years by now

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Migmog@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
Digital media adds pleasure and value to my life. Democracy adds nothing but a bunch of bullshit noise about the opinions of people who I don’t care about on things that I don’t care about. And then after all that nonsense the bureaucrats just do what they were going to do anyways because all those bullshit opinions were just to get fuckwits to pull a level for them during a popularity contest cultural celebration not unlike primitives dancing around a fire to the sound of drums. So, to be direct, because digital media is better because it is valuable and democracy isn’t because it isn’t.

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Migmog@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
If I had to pick one or the other I’d pick digital media over democracy any day…

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- StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Why? I tried to live in a world with very little digital media and it was fine, an authoritarian dictatorship with digital media sounds like an absolute nightmare.
  
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arin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
It’s the lack of education …

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