Can Social Media Save Society? — No, Facebook Didn’t Write This

We have been hearing about all the harm social media brings to society from disinformation and misinformation to all forms of pornography, abuse, and so much more. That’s all good. We should hold social media companies accountable.

But social media can do a lot of good as well. In fact, social media has the potential to save our democracies.

Let me explain.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Social media has become an indistinguishable part of life for the majority of the European Union’s population — one of the largest economies of the planet.

More than 72 percent of European citizens are active on social media networks on a daily basis. As a result, direct political targeting has become an essential asset to the success of any political campaign.

As many others have noted, this has resulted in echo chambers online where social media users are primarily exposed to views they already agree with. Understandably then, we have seen an increase in polarization.

Very few would be able to deny this phenomenon.

In fact, research confirms that the European Union is more polarized than in previous decades.

Concerningly, partisan media, which tends to border on the conspiratorial, turns moderate viewers…