Facebook explores whether social media is good for democracy
As part of its Hard Questions series, Facebook has decided to explore the question of whether social media is good for democracy. The last US presidential election brought that question to the fore of many people's minds, directly or indirectly, as it became clear that fake news and meddling by foreign actors played not insignificant roles. For this topic, Facebook is doing something a little different, inviting three outside experts to share their thoughts on this question and those individuals include Harvard professor Cass Sunstein, social media scholar and former president of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves and University of Sydney professor Ariadne Vromen. To kick off the discussion, Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebook's head of civic engagement, laid out some of the biggest issues that come with how democracy is affected by social media. Of course foreign interference and fake news made the list, but so did echo chambers, political harassment, unequal participation and politic...