Imagine a world in which political success depends on demagoguery and fame, a world in which the meter of public opinion is moved by emotion and theater, superficial stats and reasonable-enough soundbites; a world in which every political fight is the fight of our lives won not by appeals to reason, but by megaphones, marches, clenched fists and grit teeth.
Such a world could serve as the backdrop to a post-apocalyptic novel, but I'm describing something close to home. Close enough, in fact, that it's probably on your desk or in your pocket - you may be holding it in your hand this very moment. With a click on "fb" or a icon of a white bird on blue background, the imaginary world above becomes reality.
Facebook's raison d'être remains idealist: to make the world a better place. From its outset, FB would be a world of users connecting with users. Connectivity would be a good in itself, and users could expect a better life if and when they connected; the more they expanded their webs of connections, the better off they'd be. For it's part, Twitter was conceived as cyberspace pub where friends could come together, unwind and discuss everything under the sun.
Both platforms have proven wildly successful. Facebook has around 2 billion users and Twitter around 350 million. Neither is waning in popularity, despite being implicated in providing a platform for Trump and his more unsavory supporters; nor does the publicity surrounding the effects social media has on human brains, particularly those of adolescents.
The growth of social media would make for a fascinating history book, but most significant about the social media is not how well it's connected people but how much it's shaped the way people get their news. According to Niall Ferguson, Facebook is now the largest and most powerful content publisher in history, as proven by the fact that 45% of Americans get their news from Facebook. Given this grip on news, Ferguson estimates that FB founder Mark Zuckerberg is 10x more powerful a media mogul than was William Randolph Hearst at the height of his power.
Zuckerberg's rise as media mogul and gatekeeper of news coincides with the waning of traditional sources of news. Print media, particularly newspapers, have seen dwindling subscriptions and add revenue for at least a decade. In filling some - but not all - of the void left by print media, social media has redefined what counts as news, so much so that traditional news and news you'll find on Facebook and Twitter are guided by different constraints and even aims.
Whereas Facebook and Twitter see themselves as social media, traditional news outlets, on the other hand, view themselves as just that. The latter are guided by a commitment to truth and accuracy, and they rely on credible sources for information. Such things are taken for granted by reputable news outlets, even given the ever-present claims of bias. For Facebook and Twitter exist to connect and engage, thus connectivity or engagement - the online equivalent of attention in the forms of "likes", views and clicks, is the guiding principle. Each outlet generates revenue by means of engagement - the more likes, views and clicks, the more revenue. So, FB and Twitter care a great deal about the number of clicks their content attracts. The truth, accuracy and well-reasoned tone aren't goods in themselves. Rather, the good - or end - in itself is attention in the form of views, clicks and likes. Different principles produce different cultures, and for reasons mentioned, social media cultivates clicks over credibility. Either platform (FB or Twitter) will give you news, but it will be news with an inherit bias toward engaging users, and thus far more susceptible to dubious reporting sprouting up on peoples' newsfeeds as would otherwise be the case.
That is not all: because of their obligation to generate revenue for shareholders, and because they've linked generating revenue to generating clicks, Facebook and Twitter are bound by their very nature to promote engagement over credibility when it comes to news.
The mandate to engage explains why Facebook (and to a lesser extent, Twitter) has been the source of engaging but nonsensical stories (anyone remember "Pope Endorses Trump"?) as well as a culture that rewards hyperventilating and loud indignation over every political decisions, from ObamaCare to tax-cuts. It should come as no surprise to anyone who's so much as dabbled on Twitter that tweets are 20% more likely to be retweeted for the inclusion of every emotive or moral word, or that Facebook users are as likely to heap praise on cancer survivors as they are to unleash hell on political opponents. Social media is - among its permutations - the platform of "extreme views and fake news". It's no wonder the one-time cyber-pub has become a brawls-and-flying-barstools kind of place, after all, fists and war-cries are more engaging than civilized and reasoned debate. Yesterday we clamored to watch fights on the school yard and today we click to see adults hurl vitriol at each other on Twitter. When the quest to engage - and the desire to be engaged - drive political debate, much has gone awry.
More than anything in recent memory, Facebook and Twitter cultivate clusters of ideologically homogenous users who flock to those like themselves and attack those whom they see as different. Users "like" each others' posts, retweet each others' musings and crucify those of other clusters. Homophily - what those outside of academia call "birds of feather flock together" - remains the default setting for political and ideological thought on social media. The thoughtful user before waxing political calculates her posts beforehand: she prepares being placed within a cluster she may not place herself; she takes for granted that she'll pay a price for eschewing emotion for reason; and she realizes that her qualifications and nuance will fall on deaf ears. She knows all things are black and white, and to any cluster there is only "for" or "against".
Donald Trump's election may be the most visible price of Facebook and Twitter's engagement mandate. But the highest cost may be the debasement of public discourse and the overall tone of political debate, even among otherwise cool-headed commentators. American politics and its brightest stars didn't represent the best of reasonable and nuanced debate prior to Facebook. But even as Facebook and Twitter connects users, and even as we find much amusement watching cat videos, reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones, what is sowed in connectivity is reaped in fragmentation.
Social media connects. But it does so at the cost of causing people to double-down on the ideology they already embrace and to confine their perspective on the world to what they already know. Facebook will bring us together, but only if we think alike; Twitter's a great place to meet a member of my cluster, but who wants to live in a homogenous world, and who wants to sacrifice perspective for a few "likes". Hopefully not me.