Free and fair elections — one of the fundamental processes upholding America’s democracy — are dependent on voters’ access to accurate and truthful information about candidates and their policies. As such, the validity of elections is undermined when voters are misled or manipulated by people who seek to influence and misinform them through targeted ads and misinformation. Social media in particular provides the tools for the mass dissemination of information, allowing motivated groups to reach widespread audiences quickly and with barely any regulation, greatly exacerbating the situation. Section 230 protections of the Communications Decency Act instituted in 1996, for example, prevent online platforms and their users from taking legal liability for third-party content, offering no incentive for social media companies to act on the threat of misinformation. Other government regulations on social media and misinformation are also lax at best. Such conditions allow groups to utilize social media to sway voters through methods such as fake news and targeted advertisements much more easily than before. Therefore, stricter government regulations of such activities on social media are critically needed to curb the nefarious influence of these misinformation campaigns. Without urgent action, we risk the continued deterioration of democracy at home and abroad.
The impact of social media platforms on election results has been apparent for years worldwide. Its influence has been apparent since the early 2000s when approximately 55 percent of the U.S. adult population was found to seek election news online. This statistic has only increased since then, with 36 percent of U.S. voters using Facebook as their main source of news. With such a substantial portion of the population influenced by social media, manipulation via online platforms poses a larger threat compared to traditional media. Through microtargeting and data collection, social media created new methods such as targeted ad customization that allow manipulation at a more effective and wider scale than any conventional tabloid or newspaper. Its broad reach and attention-capturing style also allow misinformation and manipulative messaging to be disseminated much more widely and at a faster rate. Fake news on X spreads six times faster than factual news and is also 70 percent more likely to be reposted. The sheer number of accounts dedicated to this purpose coupled with the dispersed nature of social media makes it difficult to detect and root out. Without pressure from government regulation, social media companies are unlikely to spend the necessary time and money to combat and prevent such campaigns, and such manipulation will only increase in scope and impact.
There have been innumerable examples worldwide of manipulation via social media in recent years. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica collected personal data from millions of Facebook users without their consent, then employed mass-scale modeling to target specific demographic groups with political messaging. The company claims to have played a decisive role in Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign by targeting voters in key battleground states. In India, Narendra Modi’s BJP party spent over 30 million rupees on targeted Facebook ads in the state of Uttar Pradesh alone in February 2022. Turkey’s ruling party enlisted over 6000 people to counter government opponents on social media while Russia has been accused of influencing foreign elections through online platforms countless times. Organized Facebook propaganda campaigns were found in 56 nations, with 75 percent of the 70 countries assessed found to be using disinformation and media manipulation to mislead users. Meanwhile, over 60 percent of Facebook users are completely ignorant of any curation on the site, while 74 percent were not aware that Facebook sells their traits and interests to advertisers. Such efforts by social media users to influence election results severely undermine the ability of the people to express their true will in elections based on accurate news and authentic debate.
This crisis warrants immediate action. Outdated laws must be modified to adapt to changing times and more regulations must be ratified and enforced. Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of democracy, but the influence of such nefarious manipulation poses significant challenges to the integrity of modern elections. Democracy isn’t just the ability to vote for a certain candidate; it is about being accurately informed and being able to evaluate political decisions with clarity and discernment. The safeguarding of our electoral processes must be prioritized, and social media platforms must be held accountable for the content they disseminate. The time to act is now. Otherwise, we risk sacrificing the very foundation of democracy in this country.
