Democracy And The Digital Doomsday: Social Media's Misinformation Quagmire

Rein in or be reigned!

Once upon a time, democracy wielded its truth-tellers — respectable newspapers, RTE, drivetime radio, and the occasional “cherishing all the children of the nation equally” kind of document. Enter social media, the wild, wild west of modern political discourse, where every social media gunman with a Wi-Fi connection can duel with the facts like it’s the shootout at Béal na Bláth. We lost one hero that day, and now everyone with a social media account that has some grand pronouncement portrays themselves to be a similar hero. Spoiler alert: they don’t even come close. The poor mans De Valera, more like.

Social media, more often than not, is a toxic circus, but instead of a house of mirrors reflecting distorted images, we have our timelines filled with echo chambers and rampant misinformation soundbites. Misinformation, or its more scandalous cousin, disinformation, thrives here. It's less “ Give us the future… We’ve had enough of your past… Give us back our country… to live in – to grow in – to love” and more like “Give me likes, and fuck the truth”

We now live in the epoch of a great decline in trust in our traditional print and broadcast outlets and, with it, trust in how we consume our news. Back in the day, trust in institutions such as RTE, The Irish Times, and The Irish Independent was sacral. Social media now claims these institutions are the “mainstream media” and cannot be trusted in how they dispense what is relevant news to the masses. With misinformation spreading faster than a venereal disease, we see trust in traditional media and the government plummet to the subterranean levels of the Mitchelstown Caves.

Confusion reigns when fake news and social media soundbites are substituted for actual journalistic rigour, and suddenly, everyone morphs into an overnight pundit with a penchant for conspiracy theories that the “mainstream media” are hiding from us.

In a troubling blend of chaos and confusion that only social media could muster, a survey covering the digital landscapes of 47 international markets declared TikTok and X as the reigning champions of bewilderment when it comes to news credibility. According to the Reuters Institute's 2024 Digital News Report, these platforms have turned the task of discerning truth from actual fake news into an Olympic-level sport. 27% and 25% of those surveyed admitted that navigating the news on TikTok and X was as clear as the Liffey. Not to be left out, Facebook and Instagram were hot on their heels, with a solid 21% and 20% of users confessing that sorting fact from fiction was like trying to find a needle in an algorithmic haystack.

The social media era of these platforms was once hoped to engage and bring out hopeful, young voters, staunch defenders of democracy, willing to have their youthful voices heard and eager to make a difference. Some might argue that the same-sex marriage and abortion referendums in Ireland were proof of that. Now, thanks to social media misinformation, some voters are more concerned about whether they're being duped by deepfakes or hoodwinked by hoaxes. Democracy, with its quaint notion of informed voters, is being compromised faster than a text from one of our so-called pillar banks saying you’ve been hacked and would you mind entering your personal details.

Once revered, academic and political experts are now the punchline at the misinformation comedy club. The real analysis gets tossed out like yesterday’s takeaway, leaving only room for hot takes that prefer style over substance. Soundbites over science, amusement over analysis and derogatories instead of dialogue.

When facts become debatable, and experts become suspect, holding anyone accountable is nigh impossible.

We now rely heavily on social media connections. If you don’t have strong personal one-on-one contacts, the social media algorithms of the apps you use will decide for you who you interact with. Don’t be surprised if this doesn’t end well for all involved.

Social media algorithms, those devilish little mathematics of tech wizards, are excellent at one thing: giving you more of what you look at, even if it's nefarious misinformation. Enter the echo chamber, where seeing anything beyond your preferred reality is rarer than Sinn Fein and Fine Gael agreeing on anything. It’s all fun and games until democracy is left meditating in its polarising echo chamber where consent is only possible if you agree with everything they want you to see. It's not great for compromise but fantastic for keeping your blood pressure and self-selective biases elevated.

How do we fix this? Social media companies have wallets so deep they are capable of funding a small nation like Ireland, and they do so with their digital taxes that fund our exchequer. These digital overlords have the cash to buy influence, silence dissent and influence decisions in political and judicial circles. Money talks, social media walks.

When you consider that a social media executive has more clout than your local elected representative, it’s no wonder our TDs get jittery about throwing down the gauntlet on social media companies. Confusion breeds inaction and vice versa, and that’s just what the social media giants want. Try enforcing digital regulations against a social media behemoth that operates globally in geopolitical environments with very different rules. The EU is trying its best. TikTok and other social media companies will eventually be heavily regulated or face heavy fines. The price of so-called free speech will be in the billions for social media companies if they continue to allow political disinformation to destabilise society. Shareholders are usually not keen on massive fines.

The reasons we’re hesitant to take on these social media giants? It’s a blend of fear, confusion, and our terrible addiction that keeps us doom-scrolling on our screens. But one thing’s for sure—the longer we let social media companies run rampant, the more we’ll find ourselves in a digital democracy that’s anything but democratic.

To err is human, but to really fuck things up requires a social media account.