Social media hurts American Democracy. As Waldner and Lust describe, democracy relies on two forms of accountability to function. One is vertical accountability, meaning that citizens can hold officials accountable through elections, which pressures representatives to behave in democratic ways and represent the public interest. The second is horizontal accountability, in which institutions are responsible for reining in the executive branch. For vertical accountability to function, there must also be a political culture of informed, democratically engaged citizens who are willing and educated enough  to hold their leaders accountable. Social media is eroding American democracy by undermining vertical accountability.  It spreads misinformation and gives foreign adversaries a method to distort the information voters rely on to hold their leaders accountable.
Social media spreads misinformation, reinforces political divisions, and creates an environment where the uninformed and uneducated opinions are rewarded and incentivized. One way algorithms on social media maintain engagement is by reinforcing users’ existing political worldviews using political echo chambers. Echo chambers are when individuals are primarily exposed to opinions that align with what they already believe. In rare examples when users are faced with opposing opinions, they are often presented through uneducated or silly reasoning (otherwise known as rage bait). As a result, users cement distorted perceptions of those they disagree with. Instead of critically evaluating their own beliefs, they double down on them when they see how “wrong” the other side is. This is especially concerning given that 53% of American adults reported at least sometimes getting news from social media, according to Pew Research Center.
The problem becomes more serious when these echo chambers are combined with misinformation. A 2022 investigation by NewsGuard found that approximately 20% of TikTok videos appearing in its sampled search results for major news topics contained false or misleading information.
When users encounter misinformation within an environment that repeatedly reinforces their existing beliefs, they won’t be motivated to question that misinformation. Thus, citizens cannot distinguish reliable information due to the environment created by social media algorithms. How are they expected to vote for a candidate that will promote democracy or their best interest, when they do not have factual information to base their opinion on? Thus, the mechanism to keep democracy from eroding (vertical accountability) is tarnished.
Perhaps the most alarming concern is that foreign governments deliberately exploit America’s misinformation and lack of critical thought to undermine American democracy. Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election provides a particularly disturbing example. A bipartisan investigation by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee found that Russia’s Internet Research Agency operated an extensive social media influence campaign in which Russian operatives impersonated Americans, spread disinformation, and intensified political divisions. Facebook estimated that as many as 126 million Americans encountered content produced by the Internet Research Agency between 2015 and 2017.
This interference did not end in 2016. In July 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had disrupted a Russian government-operated, AI-enhanced bot farm consisting of 968 fictitious social media accounts. These accounts impersonated Americans while promoting messages aligned with Russian government objectives. The fact that foreign governments invest in these operations demonstrates how social media has become a tool for international political manipulation.
Russia is not alone in exploiting American social media. According to a September 2024 assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, pro-China actors used AI-generated news anchors and fabricated social media profiles to amplify divisions surrounding immigration, abortion, and drug use. Although intelligence officials did not identify these activities as attempts to influence a specific election outcome, they demonstrate how foreign actors can exploit controversial American political issues to sow division.
So why should Americans care that foreign governments are interfering in our political discourse? Foreign adversaries can deliberately manipulate the information Americans rely on to make political decisions. Democracy depends on citizens being able to hold their elected representatives accountable, but how can they do so when the information shaping their political beliefs is intentionally distorted by foreign actors? These governments do not need to overthrow American institutions to weaken democracy. They can instead undermine the electorate responsible for keeping those institutions democratic.
One might argue that my thesis is too extreme. After all, social media has existed for decades, and the United States remains a democracy. If social media were truly incompatible with democracy in America, shouldn’t American democracy have already collapsed? However, the continued existence of democratic institutions does not mean democratic erosion is not occurring. Waldner and Lust describe democratic backsliding as “a discontinuous series of incremental actions, not a one-time coup de grâce.” American democracy may have survived, but its survival does not negate the threats posed by social media.
One might also ask what is unique about social media. If American democracy is eroding, couldn’t it simply have happened to erode under Trump, regardless of social media? January 6, 2021, provides an example of how misinformation spread through online communities can directly contribute to an attack on democratic institutions.
January 6th was an attempt to overturn the results of a democratic election and thus collapse democratic institutions. Many participants in the January 6 Capitol attack were adherents of QAnon, an online conspiracy movement that falsely claimed powerful Hollywood elites and cabals participated in satanic rituals involving children and that Donald Trump would defeat them. The movement originated on 4chan, where an anonymous user claiming privileged government information began posting messages that followers interpreted as evidence of a secret political struggle. In other words, the movement that motivated many rioters was created and spread online.
On January 6, rioters stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Violent protesters called for the hanging of Mike Pence. Social media served as fuel for this democratic destruction. It also served as a means of communication during the attack. Following Trump’s tweet that Pence lacked the courage to do what was necessary, online users encouraged rioters to locate Pence . Even when the words came from Trump, social media is what carried them to rioters in real time and turned them into a call to action. Social media both spread the misinformation that motivated rioters to act and served as a means to communicate and carry out the January 6th riots. This example highlights what is unique about social media: no newspaper or TV broadcast could have let an anonymous user build a mass movement, then let that movement coordinate in the middle of an attack.
January 6 demonstrates how social media can facilitate democratic erosion by spreading misinformation and mobilizing political violence. Rioters threatened vertical accountability by attempting to overturn election results and horizontal accountability by obstructing Congress. Trump may have supplied the false claims about the election, but social media turned those claims into a mobilized crowd at the Capitol.
Social media has created an environment in which misinformation can spread rapidly, foreign adversaries can manipulate political discourse, and online radicalization can threaten democratic institutions. Each of these weakens the informed electorate that vertical accountability depends on, leaving citizens less able to hold their leaders accountable. We should not have to wait for democracy to collapse completely before recognizing the mechanisms that are weakening it.