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What Facebook Did to American Democracy
Article

What Facebook Did to American Democracy

And why it was so hard to see it coming

Alexis C. Madrigal
The Atlantic, 2017
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Eye Opening
  • Engaging

Recommendation

While US congressional investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections continue to unfold, journalists are starting to piece together the role Facebook played. The social media giant may inadvertently have helped Donald Trump to his surprise victory. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who initially dismissed suggestions that Facebook influenced the elections as “crazy,” has now acknowledged the platform’s role in spreading misinformation. Writing for The Atlantic, reporter Alexis C. Madrigal traces Facebook’s rise as the dominant media distributor and its growing impact on electoral politics. getAbstract recommends this article to citizens in democratic countries, who are wondering how a social networking site can turn into an engine of deception and propaganda

Take-Aways

  • Facebook’s personalized News Feed and targeted campaign ads expose users mostly to information that confirms and reinforces their political biases and insulate them from other news.
  • Facebook quickly became the dominant media distributor in the United States when it started to invite users to “like” media pages.
  • The right-wing, pro-Trump website Breitbart skillfully used social media to target sympathetic readers, who, by interacting heavily with its content, turned Breitbart into an influential force in the 2016 elections.

About the Author

Alexis C. Madrigal is a staff writer at The Atlantic. 

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