Recent articles on this website have discussed how social media can serve as a democratizing force through its innate ability to connect people, share information, and even acculturate people to making decisions collectively. However, recent events have also shown its potential to divide people when used malevolently. Authoritarian regimes have risen in Hungary and Poland, and other European nations have backslidden from democracy in recent years. Some of this trend was enabled, in part, by social media. In Spain, the rise of the Vox party provides a case study.
Vox is a far-right nationalist party that grew to power, at least in part, through the use of social media. Vox began out of the frustration with the 2009 worldwide economic melt-down and was fueled by Spain’s generations-old internal conflicts. Vox used social media to exploit the emotions associated with these issues. Misinformation campaigns stoked ethnic tensions. Mainstream politicians and journalists were continuously maligned. Chat groups fomented conspiracy theories against the government on a daily basis.
Clearly, Spain is not the only society that has experienced this. The United States saw similar techniques used during its 2016 Presidential Election. Britain saw these tactics used during the BREXIT campaign. In both cases, the purveyors of these techniques achieved their political objectives. How much these techniques contributed to their success is unknowable, but the victories are likely to encourage more such behavior.
Societies will need new approaches to combat social media abuse. New laws, regulations, technology, and techniques will be needed to ensure that “reality” remains discernible to people. As politics become more direct, it will be more important that the truth is understood and conveyed, and that misinformation is contained; otherwise future political missteps will increase.
Reference:
Anne Applebaum, “Want to build a far-right movement? Spain’s Vox part shows how” Washington Post op-ed, 5 May 2019, A17.