Our recent research project at the Lowy Institute –Digital Threats to Democracy – delved into whether social media companies such as Twitter/X have simply become easy scapegoats for our societies’ ills or whether they are,in fact,posing significant threats to the health of our democracy and social cohesion.
Our project has found that while digital communications technologies have brought some benefits and advantages to the way people work,live and communicate,the economic logic driving big tech companies does not factor in the protection of democracy,nor indeed the protection of other social and public goods. In fact,it can actively undermine them.
Social media platforms and other computer-mediated communication tools have enabled extremists to organise and communicate in broader and more efficient ways. They have played a significant role in spreading disinformation and fomenting polarisation. All of this has diminished open societies and democracies like Australia.
Musk crying “free speech” is a useful distraction. The debate aroundwho is allowed on digital platforms andwhat they are allowed to say or do,obscures the larger issue. Many of the threats digital technologies present to democracies stem not only from what they can do and the type of content and information that is allowed to circulate,but the economic logic behind the companies that own these technologies.
The business model behind many social media companies and digital platforms is driven by the attention economy,where highly polarising and arousing content is often prioritised because it drives revenue to the digital platforms hosting that content.
Digital technologies have also commodified the public. By providing “free” services,users have become sources of data and content that these companies can then monetise. Big tech’s business models rely on this collection of our personal information and its monetisation,what Harvard professorShoshana Zuboff famously termed “surveillance capitalism”.