Internet & democracy- how the internet can threaten democracy

 

We are living in the Digital Age and nearly 40% of the World population uses social media. Social media can not only influence relationships between people it can also influence the relationship of government and citizens for the better or worse.

First of all, social media is a good way to communicate with people all over the world and everyone can use it. The fact that everyone can use it is probably not always good. Politicians and governments can use social media to support their election campaigns or to manipulate citizens to get them to vote for them for example, the accusations against Russia has started with the rumor that Russia has influenced the election results in the USA, the Ukraine, Germany and France. Russian content reached about 126 Million Americans that makes 40% of the population Twitter, Facebook and other important websites that have a big influence on users.

What is the danger of social media?

But applications like Twitter and Facebook can also be a dangerous. In 2009 social media played a big role in the popular risings in Iran or 2013-2014 in the Ukraine. Hate speech and terrorist content can lead to violence in the real world.

What about the newspaper and other media?

Unlike the newspaper social media is so much more popular. The newspaper, the radio and the TV was in other times revolutionary as now. The assertiveness of the newspaper has suffered because of fake-news. Also the newspapers will never reach more people than the internet or the TV does. So the big companies and governments rely on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Are there laws for social media?

In the USA a group of senators presented a law draft that recommends tougher laws that already apply on the radio and TV. This could help to avoid that hate speech and fake news spread. If a post with inappropriate content does not get deleted within 24 hours the big companies like Facebook or Twitter have to calculate penalties in the amount of up to 50 Million euro.

What happens with our data?

The most people who use social media have already asked themselves this question. Posting about our lives or usage behavior can be passed on to other companies on social media. This includes purely technical information for example, the IP address of the computers, location data or the fact whether we use an iPhone or an Android device. If you post personal information it maybe happens that you will get personalized advertising.

 

In conclusion we can say that social media is a very good way to improve the relationships between the government and citizens but there still a lot issues that have to be fixed so we can use social media save and effective. We should consider at each post on social media how much of our lives we want to reveal and what consequences this could have and how we can protect our data. Remember to think for yourself and do not believe everything you read.

 

By Hannah