I’ve been thinking a lot lately about political polarization. Months ago, I had something of an epiphany when I encountered a visual meme posted by a cousin on Facebook. The meme deployed an illogical argument to argue against mask-wearing for mitigating COVID-19. I couldn’t understand where my cousin came up with such an idea and why he felt the need to share it, but of course it wasn’t his idea - and that makes all the difference.
Because it does make a difference when you think about the fact that a malignant social media post, rather than being produced by the person posting, has actually been deliberately produced and placed to provoke discord between American families, friends and neighbors. In the past two years, foreign governments acting in opposition to US interests have sought to disrupt public trust and sow domestic confusion among rival Western states by promoting disinformation COVID-19, especially to American audiences on social media. For example, state-sponsored troll farms out of Russia and China have spread disinformation about Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. “They broadcast exaggerated side effects, falsely reported deaths, intentionally contradictory information regarding Western regulatory approval processes, personal attacks upon pharmaceutical executives, so as to undermine public confidence” (Gowda, 2021). These bad actors on social media exacerbate our political divisions.
Political Polarization
So my cousin isn’t so much a producer of bad information as a victim of it. But in reposting the bad information, he assists in superspreading a viral disease. This disease isn’t physical, it’s mental, and helps drive the perception that we are currently in the highest state of political polarization experienced in our country since the Civil War. (Political polarization at its worst since the Civil War, 2016) Researchers from Stanford University found that animosity between Democrats and Republicans nearly doubled from 1975 to 2017 (Sonnemaker, n.d.). Though not solely responsible, social media has exacerbated political polarization, and there are several reasons why - algorithms that encourage echo chambers, purposeful disinformation campaigns, and the opportunity for political rhetoric to devolve into untruth on platforms with no accountability.
Cognitive Echo Chambers
Social media offers a skewed version of reality. Algorithms encourage content in an individual's news feed geared towards what they like, over time creating a kind of echo chamber where users only receive the content they want, encouraging confirmation bias. Human behavior also has a role to play in the development of these echo chambers, as people unfriend or block others that disagree with them politically, further promoting the likelihood that a diversity of opinion won’t exist on their feed. Opinions don’t get challenged in this environment, only amplified. Exacerbating this issue, these same algorithms work to maximize social engagement and keep people online longer. Unfortunately, the posts that typically generate maximum engagement are those that incite outrage. Online negativity is incentivised when divisive content equals higher engagement - in other words, the current system encourages negative content because it generates more money for platforms from advertisers (Sonnemaker, n.d.)
Bad Actors
Purposeful disinformation campaigns on social media are produced by individuals, political operatives and governments known as troll farms. These troll farms post from fake accounts or groups meant to look like real people, with content about the pandemic, elections, race, religion and divisive political issues on both the left and right ends of the political spectrum. Ahead of the 2020 Election, troll farms in Kosovo and Macedonia engaged in disinformation campaigns that “reached 140 million US users monthly and 360 million global users weekly in late 2019” (Agustin, n.d.). Russia’s Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-backed troll farm that was very active with disinformation campaigns in the 2016 US election, created groups that attracted large followings like the black activism group “Blacktivist” (360,000 followers) and “Heart of Texas” (250,000 followers) a Texas secessionist group (Alba, 2020). These groups, which weren’t shut down by Facebook until 2017, exposed many unwitting people to Russian propaganda meant to damage our political institutions and democratic ideals.
This Texas secessionist group attracted nearly 250,000 followers
- but was actually created by Russian Trolls (Source: New York Times)
Move On Over, Pinocchio
When it comes to political advertising, there is a big difference between newspapers and broadcast television vs. social media and cable television. Newspaper publishers and broadcast news producers can be held legally liable for untruthful political ads they publish or broadcast. So it is not in the best interest of a newspaper to print a political ad that has untruths in it. But cable television and social media, operating under the parameters of private enterprise and free speech, have no such incentive. The aforementioned social media echo chambers also offer politicians opportunities to shape messaging for specific audiences, meaning they can easily craft lies about their opponents that only reach interested audiences, so that their lies never come under true “public” scrutiny. Lata Nott writes for the American Bar Association, “Regulation of political ads on social media, whether by the platforms themselves or government actors, needs to take into account that allowing candidates to micro target ads while at the same time refraining from fact checking their statements creates an environment where false information can spread unchecked” (Nott, 2020).
How Far Apart Are We, Really?
Sure, political polarization is rampant, but is it real? Yes, Democrats and Republicans may be twice as adversarial as they were in 1975, but if you remove the labels of “Democrat” and “Republican,” you may find that folks are not so divided when it comes to actual political issues. For example, you might think that “Black Lives Matter,” is a point of contention for Americans, yet there has been a seismic shift in American attitudes towards racism and policing according to a 2020 Monmouth University poll, with 76% of respondents agreeing that racism is a big problem in America. “Never before in the history of modern polling have Americans expressed such widespread agreement that racial discrimination plays a role in policing — and in society at large” (Russonello, 2020).
Where Do We Go From Here?
Social media seems to do more to drive us apart politically than bring us together. But it doesn’t have to be that way, if social media users can get savvy in regards to how they interact with the information they encounter, particularly when it is polarizing. First off, don’t follow accounts you can’t verify are legitimate or share posts from accounts you don’t recognize. The posts won’t always be informative on this point - some bad actors will create innocuous posts at first to build their following, so exercise discretion in your following. Many of the memes and posts that bad actors spread on social media can be easily debunked with the application of a bit of critical thinking, or the 5 W’s:
Who (originally) wrote what you are reading?
What are they trying to convince you to believe?
Why do they want you to think that way?
When did they write it? (When you first encounter a post it might seem new, but could be years out of date.)
Where did the meme originate? (Was it a foreign country unfriendly to American interests?)
Finally, don’t trust political information from politicians or about politicians on social media. Use a rule of three whenever you see contentious information about someone - check three other legitimate sources for the same information, one right-leaning, one left-leaning, and one non-partisan. See if they are saying the same things in the same way. Broadcast television and mainstream newspapers are sources that, because of the accountability factor, are a much better source for political candidate information. Above all, don’t get revved up by what you encounter on social media before you’ve thoroughly fact-checked, and even then, give some thought about who might be attempting to manipulate your views and why.
Agustin, F. (n.d.). Troll farms peddling misinformation on Facebook reached 140 million Americans monthly ahead of the 2020 presidential election, report says. Business Insider. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-troll-farms-peddling-misinformation-reached-nearly-half-of-americans-2021-9
Alba, D. (2020, March 29). How Russia’s Troll Farm Is Changing Tactics Before the Fall Election. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/technology/russia-troll-farm-election.html
America Is Not As Divided As You Think. Yes, Really. (n.d.). Www.wbur.org. https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/01/20/biden-inauguration-polarization-unity-shaun-adamec-nat-kendall-taylor
Dimock, M., & Wike, R. (2020, November 13). America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide. Pew Research Center; Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/13/america-is-exceptional-in-the-nature-of-its-political-divide/
Gowda, V. (2021, March 10). State-Sponsored COVID Vaccine Disinformation: A New Front in Geopolitical Conflict. Bill of Health. https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2021/03/10/covid-vaccine-disinformation-geopolitics/
Murse, Tom. (2021, February 16). How Social Media Has Changed Politics. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/how-social-media-has-changed-politics-3367534
Nott, L. (2020, June 26). Political Advertising on Social Media Platforms. Www.americanbar.org. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/voting-in-2020/political-advertising-on-social-media-platforms/
Olin, J. (2016, December 6). Letters to a Young Librarian: Information Literacy as Liberation. Letters to a Young Librarian. http://letterstoayounglibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/12/information-literacy-as-liberation.html
Political polarization at its worst since the Civil War. (2016, November 8). USC News. https://news.usc.edu/110124/political-polarization-at-its-worst-since-the-civil-war-2/
Russonello, G. (2020, June 5). Why Most Americans Support the Protests. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/us/politics/polling-george-floyd-protests-racism.html
Sonnemaker, T. (n.d.). 11 experts explain how our digital world is fueling polarization. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-internet-social-media-fuel-polarization-america-facebook-twitter-youtube-2020-12
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