We are living in the age of exponential technology growth, which is coupled with the continual deterioration of democracy. The rise of populism, of the extremes and abstention in tandem with the rise of totalitarianism (in certain parts of the world) are all testament to this deterioration. It is reasonable to assume that the weakening of democracy and the great technological growth of our times are correlated.
A lot of people, since the inception of the internet, have praised it as the most democratic medium of disseminating information, due to its capability for bilateral communication between the channels of information and the recipients. More importantly, it enables all its users to freely share their thoughts. All these are, undoubtedly, really important benefits of the Internet. However, there is a trap that, more or less, all of us have fallen prey to, and it is the trap of misinformation, a terrible problem for democracy. A misinformed person is not only a danger to themselves but could also be the bearer of false information to affect others, acting as a contagious patient of yet another pandemic. Sadly, misinformation is six times faster-spreading than factual information on social media1, resulting in the discussions between citizens becoming (at best) inefficient, due to them being based on false information. This is because of the algorithms used on these platforms, with the former, causing other problems to modern democracies as well.
Social media algorithms are created to increase the engagement of the user, so the latter will view more advertisements and more personal data are extracted from them. To achieve that, each user gets a personalized instance of the platform, unique to them and their interests, for the time spent on these sites to be maximized. In this case, however, the democratic aspect of the internet is getting lost: a person leaning towards a certain political direction will be seeing more posts that agree with their opinions and fewer posts that challenge them2. As a result, the person is becoming dogmatic, due to the absence of counterarguments. In the long term, discussions will be getting rarer, with people preaching to - instead of conversing with - others. Thus, the search for common ground is undermined and the extremes are harbouring support.
Current technology can, also, be a direct threat to democracies, not exclusively indirect. A good example would be the 2020 American elections, where a fifth of the voting public will vote using electronic poll stations that are susceptible to cyber attacks3, with potentially catastrophic consequences for democracy. On the other hand, looking to the east, China can deny people access to basic democratic rights using modern technology. The Chinese government has installed a state-of-the-art surveillance system to police its citizens4. The system uses cameras, the internet and various other databases, in order to have a complete picture of every citizen and their actions. Aside from this blatant breach of the right to privacy, the Chinese government takes things one step further: the data mined from the system are used to evaluate the social standing of its citizens. The result of this is an algebraic number, which is used to determine whether citizens are getting punished or rewarded. The punishments vary but can range up to disallowing a person to leave the country, thereby disregarding the right to freedom. Any objection to these measures or any actions toward supporting the democratization of China would yield lower social points, to further solidify the regime.
We can conclude, now, that modern technology has the potential to threaten democracy and, in many ways, already does so. To those who praise technology for its potential to enable democracy to be spread, or despise it for its potential to destroy democracy, in truth it really doesn’t matter. Modern technology is already in our lives and is now an inextricable part of them. For that reason, our duty is not to dispose of our technological tools (since it is not dangerous by itself) but to change the way we use them. We must not forget: it is not our laptops to blame for our division, but our own bigotry. It is not our tablet to blame for believing fake news, but our own carelessness. We can't blame the social media algorithms that we believed in populist politicians but our own naivety. Technology did not turn us into worse people, but reminded us who we truly are.
Sources:
1. https://news.mit.edu/2018/study-twitter-false-news-travels-faster-true-stories-0308
2. https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/08/22/140661/this-is-what-filter-bubbles-actually-look-like/
3. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-vulnerabilities-of-our-voting-machines/
4. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-corporate-social-credit-system-how-it-works/
