Debbie Ball, Data and Society Lecturer and PhD doctoral researcher at the University of Westminster, spoke to The Guardian about the risks of using social media for politics, in an age of mass disinformation and polarisation.
The article questions whether politics should be kept out of social media, looking at where the line is between raising awareness and encouraging polarisation of society. With the risk of creating echo chambers and spreading misinformation, journalist Amy Fleming explores if it is safer for people to avoid putting their political views on social media altogether.
In the article, Debbie Ball, whose work investigates how apps are designed to influence their users, explains how behaviours on social media have changed over the years, with people being more comfortable these days to post their views online. This increased confidence is contrasted against today’s digital landscape, populated by disinformation businesses such as troll farms and political digital marketing campaigns spreading propaganda.
In particular on X (formerly Twitter), she explains how easy it is for users to slip into a “whole ecosystem of bad actors spreading disinformation and political campaigning […] fuelling the maelstrom of online political debate and, despite what the dominant companies like Meta say, it’s not to champion freedom of speech, it’s to encourage people to post more, create more content and to keep making money out of people’s data.”
She adds: “It only takes someone to repost something to further drift into a disinformation environment and get embroiled in something more divisive.”
Read the full article on The Guardian’s website.
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