The Atlantic has a good article on What Facebook Did to American Democracy by Alexis C. Madrigal (Oct. 12, 2017). What is interesting is how we assumed that the net and social media could affect things and that is would naturally benefit the left.
The research showed that a small design change by Facebook could have electoral repercussions, especially with America’s electoral-college format in which a few hotly contested states have a disproportionate impact on the national outcome. And the pro-liberal effect it implied became enshrined as an axiom of how campaign staffers, reporters, and academics viewed social media.
The story of networked politics seems to be that of tactics being developed by the left and promoted as democratizing and inclusive that are then reused by the right. It is also the story of how Facebook decided to own news and fake news. They created filter bubbles so that none of knew what the other was thinking.
An important article. Read.