Technology and Democracy
When social network services emerged, like Twitter and Facebook, many people expected that those would improve democracy all around the world. Those new services seemed to provide super-efficient exchanges of information. Everyone freely and equally posted their opinion. In this new free world, censorship seemed to lose power. In some aspects, technology contributed to improving democracy, especially in “Arab Spring.”
However, people are concerning that technology can be another threat to democracy nowadays. Some might say fake news is spreading through the internet and, for sure, this would obviously hinder healthy democracy. Except for this obvious issue, we should think and consider implicit possibilities that can harm democracy. Here are some reasons and related articles about this issue.
Firstly, social network services are improving in a way that easily promotes people to convey anger. For instance, we can say Twitter’s retweet function. In the early days of Twitter, it did not have a retweet function, so if people found something to share, they had to think and organize their thoughts for a while before posting a tweet. However, after adopting a retweet function, people just pushed the retweet button and super quickly spread something, especially explicit and provoking anger. In terms of democracy, anger is harmful. It restricts people to build a healthy conversation. (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/social-media-democracy/600763/)
Secondly, technology can manipulate public opinion. For example, in 2015, Facebook changed its news feed algorithm and it affected interactions between users and news media. To be specific, Facebook moved its newsfeed function to recommend more user’s friends and family’s postings rather than news medias postings. As a result, news companies found out that its websites’ traffic and debates over the news were reduced. It is not sure that this fact is either good or bad for democracy. However, it is definitely obvious that changing a line of codes in tech companies algorithm can affect the public sphere, a concept of Juergen Habermas, in some way. This is the reason tech companies should bear more responsibilities in politics. (https://theconversation.com/facebook-algorithm-changes-suppressed-journalism-and-meddled-with-democracy-119446)
Thirdly, censorship is still valid in this brand new era of technology. For sure, many people would think of internet censorship in China with this issue. However, more basically, technology can suppress people from voicing their opinion freely. Face recognition technology can be used in this way. If people become afraid that there is no more anonymity, protests on the street could disappear. As people could see in Hong Kong, physical protest on the street is still important and valid. (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/09/the-guardian-view-on-facial-recognition-a-danger-to-democracy)
The technology could be not only a blessing but also a threat. This rhetoric is valid in terms of democracy. As tech companies get more power in our society, they should think of their responsibilities in this aspect.
