Source: https://v-dem.net/documents/44/v-dem_dr2024_highres.pdf page 7
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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How much of that can be blamed on social media?
Somewhere between none and all of it.
It would make total sense if changing the way we communicate causes a change in which social structures work, but the first theories about it (radicalising echo chambers) turned out to be empirically wrong. Now there's new theories that connect the two, but on the other hand this isn't the first episode of democratic backsliding, so it's possible they're not connected at all, or only mildly connected.
Social media is what let some people even fight back in the first place.
Yeah, the Arab spring didn't really make a huge impact in the end, but it definitely had the potential, and that was down to social media.
One of the new theories I've seen is that people, through social media, are being exposed to more viewpoints they disagree with, and radicalising in response - in other words not enough echo chambers. Using the opposite argument to support the same conclusion is suspicious as hell.