My auntie’s mother Daphne is a typical retiree who has lived a comfortable life and has now settled down in Thanet. Daphne and her husband lived in London for much of their lives, brought up 3 children and have many grandchildren. For her whole life, Daphne never expressed xenophobic or far-right views – this was until she signed up to Facebook. The bulk of her conversations now are rants over how “the migrants are taking our jobs” and how “they’re all rapists!”. However, this is not an isolated incident, and there are now many ‘Daphnes’ out there; the role social media plays in shaping our perception of the world is a cancer quickly growing at the heart of our democracy.
Daphne’s downfall probably started when she stumbled upon a single post with mildly discriminatory views, and having liked it, her ‘feed’ quickly snowballed into a bombardment of diminishing far-right prattle. This vicious cycle that encapsulates the minds of millions of pensioners like her across the country is known as an echo-chamber, and social media algorithms are built to encourage it, with more aggressive posts being suggested so as to retain engagement.
One may think, ‘extreme views are typical of any democracy, what’s different?’. I think the answer is that this is happening on a much larger and more accessible scale than many former democratically extremist examples. Groups like the EDL have gained thousands of members on Facebook (Daphne being one of them); but another problem with this form of following is that these views are not challenged in the ways they would have been in the past. For hundreds of years before the invention of the mobile phone, newspapers were the primary source of news for the country. People would buy a copy each morning and read it throughout the day on the train, on the armchair and on the toilet. They usually consisted of various views, with reading the article itself the only way to decipher the beliefs of the columnist. Obviously, not all newspapers are non-biased; some call migrants ‘cockroaches’, and some famously blame the victims of the Hillsborough disaster for ‘urinating’ on the police at the scene, and some blatantly show bias against Meghan Markle compared to her contemporary royals… this could go on forever, but it’s clear that not all newspapers are non-biased. However, I believe that this range of sources and opinions meant that people obtained many perspectives, usually an equal balance of right and left-wing views, and were able to come to their own conclusions. They are also (slightly) more authoritative as compared to facebook, with everyone being able to publish on the internet. This system has been shattered by the introduction of social media, with 45% of the UK consuming their news through the medium, and their plotting algorithms suggesting only things that we already believe in, forcing people like Daphne’s views to become more and more extreme.
Daphne is an outlying case, as people are more likely to say make distasteful comments while hiding behind the safety of anonymity, whereas she thinks that the family lunch at the Toby Carvery is the optimal place to preach her racist spiel. The comments on social media platforms are becoming progressively more hostile, with people more likely to make extremist comments through online platforms then when facing someone in the real world. This further intensifies political discourse, and is yet another way in which social media threatens politics.
Then comes Russia, who ‘almost certainly’ (according to Dominic Raab) meddled with the 2019 General Election through – you guessed it – social media. They had robots posting propaganda supporting Boris Johnson, who they believed would be most beneficial to the Kremlin’s agenda. If you scroll through the comments on the Labour Party’s Twitter posts in the run-up to a general election, you will see many anonymous accounts promoting views attesting to the greatness of Johnson, such as ‘Support Boris 100%’ or ‘Brilliant Boris’. The aim of this is to persuade the British public of Johnson’s competence and the mass of support he has, either promoting apathy from those who wouldn’t vote for him or sparking fires of chauvinism in his advocates.
The solution? There are many exponents for the use of ID when signing up to social media platforms, the thinking being that this will stop extremist comments from being posted, as the accounts will be easier to identify to authorities and workplaces. A petition pleading for this to be discussed in Parliament was met with the response: “User ID verification for social media could disproportionately impact vulnerable users and interfere with freedom of expression.” The legislation mentioned is currently going through pre-legislative scrutiny and will be looked at by the government – they say it aims to force social media companies to ‘keep their users safe’.
Our Daphne is probably beyond persuasion point now, though there are many British people out there slowly taking their first steps down this illusive path who need to be told the facts, not the tainted views of their favourite social media star. These people are not instinctively more vicious than you or I, just rather ill-informed and, though they may not know it, need to get some better sources of ‘truth’ in their lives.
Edited by Theo Adler-Williams
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