Changed approach to social media could revolutionise political debate

By Adam Hallissey

Social media has fundamentally altered the way we interact with each other. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others have changed how companies market goods, how we access information and conduct research, and most importantly how we live our lives. Many organisations have mastered this new world, often working alongside strategic communications specialists to achieve their goals, but others have not.

In no other area has the advent of social media proven so revolutionary as in the sphere of political discourse. In the midst of this rapid transformation, it is important that we remember the values of decency, fact-checking and bipartisanship which served us well for hundreds of years prior to the invention of social media.

The capacity for social media to enhance the political sphere is obvious. Similar to how the digitalisation of markets has seen opportunities arise in the area of e-commerce — e-retail sales are expected to account for 23% of all retail sales by 2023 — social media offers politicians a chance to engage with voters in a distinctly direct manner. Thanks to the increased connectedness, we can now demand greater authenticity from our political representatives in their campaigning and greater transparency and accountability in their governance.

Social media has also successfully decentralised the power to influence politics and the legislative process, opening the debate up and widening awareness of the issues that matter. Online campaigns on social issues have seen a number of European countries reform their social policies, including in Ireland where two referenda, one on same-sex marriage and the other on abortion, brought about significant changes.

Internationally, social media has magnified issues of suffering and injustice. The Arab Spring protests against oppressive regimes in the early 2010s found new life on social media, while, more recently, pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong have turned to Facebook and Twitter to make their voices heard and to call for international support for their cause.

But, as in all walks of life, where opportunities arise for common good, there will always be those who use new technology to further their own nefarious agendas. Extremists on the far-left and far-right have utilised the highly emotive, topline nature of social media political content to their advantage, stoking racial and economic fears in the process. In the hyper-partisanship of online political debate, nuance and the truth often lose out.It appears as though the louder voices are those that dominate on social media, while meaningful ideas and genuine expertise get left by the wayside.

Users on social media have been found to be susceptible, through advertising techniques and the mass-mobilisation of accounts, to having their political views manipulated through purposeful campaigns. As was seen in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the role which Cambridge Analytica, a firm specialising in using social media user data, played in its success, online tactics can be used to remove the fairness of the level playing field of democracy too.

It is fair to say that humans have always been divided and tribal. Social media, however, has seemingly contributed to our societies being more politically polarised than ever before. Rather than bringing people together, in many ways, social media has regrettably served to highlight and heighten our differences, dividing us into separate camps through algorithms which curate the content we are fed based on our staunchly held beliefs.

Left and right of the political spectrum continuously retreat into separate online bunkers, unwilling to listen to anything of substance the other side has to say, only appearing on occasion to fling a grenade of distortion at the other side in the hope of winning support and provoking a reaction. Every time we login, we seem to grow further and further apart.

Like any systemic, cultural shift, if we are to redirect our society’s usage of social media to a more proactive, unifying direction, it will require each individual focusing on changing and improving their own personal tendencies and behaviours. Legislative reforms attempting to curb radicalism and anti-social behaviour online ranging from the Scottish parliament’s hate speech laws to the EU’s upcoming Digital Services Act will only be able to achieve so much without social media users themselves being willing to change their approach to political debate.

We need to listen to dissenting voices, and remember to treat others with the respect with which we would like to be treated ourselves. We need to make an effort, in an age of information overload, to prioritise sharing and engaging with content which is factual and grounded in reality, rather than that which automatically appeals to our preconceived, passionately held beliefs. If we are to achieve a more open and constructive political dialogue on social media, the possibilities for improved policy outcomes are endless, as are the opportunities for our society to be made stronger, more cohesive and be brought closer together, but changes in mindset will have to be made, and sooner rather than later.