Why the Internet Is Bad for Democracy (2005)

38 pointsposted 10 hours ago
by tguvot
(dl.acm.org)

32 Comments

polalavik

9 hours ago

I think a deeper dive on this is The Revolt of the Public by Martin Gurri [1] which argues, in short, that people have been enabled by the internet (which he calls the infosphere) and that mobilization via the internet has created extreme turbulence for systems of authority (which are still needed despite their existing issues). The people enabled by the internet have no way to rule, and in many examples do not wish to rule, but only want to dismantle the status quo without any meaningful replacement or solution leaving everyone in a vacuum of nihilism which is highly corrosive to liberal democracy.

[1] https://press.stripe.com/the-revolt-of-the-public

esyir

4 hours ago

I'd say that the internet has also strongly lowered the barriers to external propaganda and influence, which is another major factor here. When you've got a huge swarm of "people" with no stake, or even a negative stake in your country, that's a naturally destabilizing factor

spencerflem

9 hours ago

I genuinely don’t get how anyone could feel anything other than nihilism with regards to American democracy

IlikeKitties

7 hours ago

I'll add European gerontocracy to that list. Nihilism becomes the obvious and only solution.

AndrewKemendo

3 hours ago

But that was always the case for first nations and black Americans.

There has literally never been a good time in America for either group.

Mountain_Skies

6 hours ago

Yes, it's shocking how common the belief is now that democracy means a person's preferred candidate always wins. Anyone else winning is the death of democracy. The mental gymnastics some people will go through to promote this view can border on mania.

arvid-lind

4 hours ago

I think it's at least partially because we can't agree on what terms like "democracy" and "fascism" mean anymore, and that doesn't seem like it's going to get any better. Things like diplomacy, bipartisanship, and cooperation can't compete with conflict and aggression in the algorithms. What do we expect will be guiding future generations of voters' opinions and decisions on this kind of stuff?

brewtide

6 hours ago

"just because you are offended doesn't mean you are right".

It's the modern day way. Perhaps the online filter bubbles over the past... Long while... Have finally shown their long term real world impacts.

spencerflem

6 hours ago

I have zero preferred candidates and likely never will

barishnamazov

9 hours ago

The author missed the mark on the financial barriers to entry. He predicted that the shift from text to broadband/multimedia would make politics "more expensive" and raise entry barriers because video is costly to produce.

In reality, the cost of video production dropped to near-zero (smartphones, TikTok, YouTube). However, he was right about the outcome. The "entry barrier" isn't the cost of the camera, it's the cost of the algorithmic optimization and the "strategies to draw attention" in an information glut. The rich didn't win because video is expensive; they won because virality is gameable with resources. Credits where due, he indeed called out this potential for "international manipulation of domestic politics" well before the major scandals of the 2016 era.

iamnothere

7 hours ago

The rich won in America before the Revolution. The Revolution was led by rich men who wanted to set their own tax policy, workhouses and vagrancy laws were used to control the poor in early America, union busting and violent strike breaking began in the late 1800s, inequality has soared since the 70s. The only time you could say that the rich were really on the back foot was from the Great Depression to the end of the gold standard, after which we entered the era of unlimited currency expansion (currency which somehow always finds its way into the pockets of rich men). Media in the 90s was controlled by a handful of companies who consolidated further as soon as the government stopped enforcing rules about concentration.

In other words, the present day is just business as usual.

I am against this growing notion that the internet is creating a unique situation where the average person is more oppressed than ever. It enables both good and bad things, and yes we really need to pay attention to the bad things. But it’s still a tool that can be used for engagement in the democratic process, for speech, for small scale commerce, and for communication.

This needs to be stated because those who oppose the good aspects of the internet are fully prepared to hijack anti-internet sentiment in the name of protecting the public. “Locking down” the internet will do nothing to improve the situation of ordinary people. Quite the opposite in fact.

rickydroll

9 hours ago

The internet discourse is like handing a megaphone to an angry drunk.

iamnothere

8 hours ago

If you read history, this is simply public discourse in general. (Often literally.)

If you’re opposed to the difficult and often irrational voices of the public, you’re in fact opposed to democracy.

petermcneeley

8 hours ago

What about the difficult and often irrational voices of the elite?

iamnothere

8 hours ago

I don’t know, what about them?

intalentive

8 hours ago

The text does not really support the title. It argues: “The Internet is not necessarily good for democracy, as optimists claim. It’s more likely to be a mixed bag that presents new challenges.”

This is a good early example of the “populism is bad for democracy” genre of Ivy League handwringing, with titles like “The People Vs. Democracy”. It’s almost amusing to see how uncomfortable the ruling class is with peer-to-peer discourse unmediated by Fact Checkers, Debunkers, and other Adults In The Room.

AuthAuth

7 hours ago

I'm not the ruling class but im getting uncomfortable with "peer-to-peer discourse unmediated by Fact Checkers, Debunkers, and other Adults In The Room". Have you seen the popular formats of discussion? The are insane even with fact checkers and adults in the room trying to steer the conversation.

iamnothere

7 hours ago

This is the norm throughout history and will continue to be the norm in democracies with free speech. You should read more about partisan papers in the time of yellow journalism, or town hall meetings before the radio era.

People are often obnoxious, irrational, absurd, and they may even flat out lie. Shocking! Advocating for this mess to be kept from view is advocating for further obscuring the reality of the situation.

I grew up in a time when the TV only presented a polished, curated, “civilized” view of the world. It’s why most Americans didn’t know anything about US interventions in Latin America, about the effects of offshoring and trade liberalization, and about the false justifications for the Iraq War. (Yet even in the late 20th century, conspiracy talk was rampant—it’s not a new phenomenon nor was it created by the internet.)

AuthAuth

6 hours ago

People can talk and be as crazy as they want. I just dont like when those talks have the same reach as the polished curated view of the world. Its better to have your government control facts about an on going conflict than what we have today.

iamnothere

6 hours ago

> Its better to have your government control facts about an on going conflict than what we have today.

This is how you get atrocities and coverups, strategic losses that don’t result in corrective action, and endless graft. Eventually this leads to major military losses. Some degree of wartime censorship is inevitable to conceal information from the enemy, but anything beyond that creates serious problems in a democracy.

AuthAuth

6 hours ago

You get atrocities and coverups regardless. My logic is that a cohesive nation working towards common goals is better than a nation of crabs in a bucket constantly undermining each other and distorting reality.

Ideally you should trust your government. In a healthy democracy the government can create a barrier to entry for the media and then be hands off only intervening when necessary. This isnt a bad thing at all in my opinion.

I prefer this to having 0 barrier to enter the media and allowing anyone to give their opinion.

iamnothere

6 hours ago

You live in a fantasy. Democracy exists as a system precisely because you cannot trust governments made up of human beings. If trust were not an issue, monarchy or dictatorship would be more efficient and effective.

There is no such thing as a nation consistently working towards common goals, except in a totalitarian system. At best you can get a few years of alignment in wartime, but even then you often need to brutally repress dissent to maintain that alignment. In peacetime, different people have divergent goals, and unless you are on a civilizational upswing (like the US in the mid-20th century or contemporary China) then discontented voters will multiply, and they need to have a real say in the direction of the country. Thinking you can gaslight people into consistently voting against their interests without consequences is hubris.

This whole “managed democracy” business that Europe is moving towards will end in fire.

tguvot

7 hours ago

if you had to pick one, do you prefer polished, curated, “civilized” view of the world from that times, or todays onslaught of lies, disinformation and conspiracies ?

Mountain_Skies

6 hours ago

Which one do you think is democracy?

tguvot

5 hours ago

neither. given that democracy is form of government and not preference for (mis)information distribution

iamnothere

6 hours ago

Clearly today’s onslaught of lies, disinformation, and conspiracies. A lot of good information comes along with all the bad.

Before we had the internet, many things were done with my tax dollars that I had zero insight into. These days, even though I can’t do anything about it, at least I’m aware of the parade of horrors around the world. In some cases I can even make informed decisions based on that information.

I’d rather have fellow voters making decisions based on an abundance of information, some of which is bad, than a carefully crafted set of information that’s designed to steer voters toward a limited set of outcomes.

wussboy

9 hours ago

I strongly support this message

yunnpp

9 hours ago

Very good paper, no nonsense and straight to the point(s). These sort of topics need way more visibility and discussion in democracies, especially today.

zrn900

7 hours ago

This implies that not having internet was good for democracy before that. Internet was not proliferated in 2003 when the Iraq War happened. Was there democracy then... When Vietnam happened, was it democracy...