The role of social media in politics has increased ten-fold in light of recent events, including Russian interference in the 2016 election, which included the use of social media "troll bots" to spread fake news and propaganda; the sale of Facebook users' private data to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that aided Donald Trump's campaign for president; and, more recently, news of social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube using various tactics to censor political speech, from "shadow banning" to demonitizing content to outright banning of accounts. This has resulted in a larger debate about whether these "Big Tech" companies are to be treated as private companies, free to do whatever they want and dip into politics as they please, or if they qualify as public institutions that have socio-political responsibilities to the public, and, if the latter is the case, what exactly these responsibilities are. While I'm
Comments
Post a Comment