PerspectiveDigital Threats to Democracy
A new study surveyed hundreds of technology experts about whether or not digital disruption will help or hurt democracy by 2030. Of the 979 responses, about 49 percent of these respondents said use of technology “will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade,” while 33 percent said the use of technology “will mostly strengthen core aspects of democracy.”
Democracy Digest reports that the new Pew Research Center report, in partnership with Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, surveyed hundreds of technology experts about whether or not digital disruption will help or hurt democracy by 2030.
Of the 979 responses, about 49 percent of these respondents said use of technology “will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade” while 33 percent said the use of technology “will mostly strengthen core aspects of democracy,” the Nieman Lab adds.
Jonathan Morgan, a senior design researcher at the Wikimedia Foundation, explained his reasoning behind why he thinks technology will continue to hurt democracy in this way:
1) The use of social media by interested groups to spread disinformation in a strategic, coordinated fashion with the intent of undermining people’s trust in institutions and/or convincing them to believe things that aren’t true.
2) The role of proprietary, closed platforms run by profit-driven companies in disseminating information to citizens, collecting information from (and about) citizens, and engaging political stakeholder groups……
3) The growing role of surveillance by digital platform owners (and other economic actors that collect and transact digital trace data) as well as by state actors, and the increasing power of machine learning-powered surveillance technologies for capturing and analyzing data, threaten the public’s ability to engage safely and equitably in civic discussions.
