Social networks are creating a global crisis of democracy
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OPINION
Social networks are creating a
global crisis of democracy
Silicon Valley once promised its digital revolution would topple dictators –
but now it's disrupting the free world instead. Niall Ferguson asks: What
have we done?
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In 2016, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley titans saw their creations help Donald Trump win the White House. Now those
companies are frantically hitting the escape key – and the world’s democracies are waking up to the threats of social networks, Niall
Ferguson argues.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
NIALL FERGUSON
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED JANUARY 19, 2018
UPDATED JANUARY 20, 2018
Niall Ferguson’s new book, The
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"E
Square and the Tower:
sc!" It's the key on the top left of the keyboard
Networks and Power from the
that you hit frantically when your laptop
Freemasons to Facebook, is
published this month by
crashes. Confronted by the ghastly reality that some
Penguin Press.
of their proudest creations – Google, Facebook and
Twitter – helped propel Donald Trump into the
White House, the tech titans of Silicon Valley are
hitting esc like panic-stricken sophomores whose term papers have frozen before
they clicked on the "save" icon.
"Content moderators" are being hired by the thousand. Fake accounts are being
closed. The News Feed is being "fixed." Esc, esc, esc. But that page is still frozen. And
it will take more than esc to fix this. More like ctrl+alt+del.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. For a time, it seemed as if the internet was on
democracy's side, helping the crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square or Kiev's Maidan
topple terrible tyrants.
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"Current network technology … truly favours the citizens," wrote Google's Jared
Cohen and Eric Schmidt in their 2013 book The New Digital Age. "Never before have
so many people been connected through an instantly responsive network," with
truly "game-changing" implications for politics everywhere.
Mr. Cohen and Mr. Schmidt's 2010 article "The Digital Disruption" presciently
argued that authoritarian governments would "be caught off-guard when large
numbers of their citizens, armed with virtually nothing but cellphones, take part in
mini-rebellions that challenge their authority."
The "real action" in what they called "the interconnected estate" could be found in
"cramped offices in Cairo" as well as "on the streets of Tehran. From these locations
and others, activists and technology geeks are rallying political 'flash mobs' that
shake repressive governments, building new tools to skirt firewalls and censors,
reporting and tweeting the new online journalism, and writing a bill of human
rights for the internet age."
Even more euphoric was Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of
Facebook. In 2015, he called the internet "a force for peace in the world."
Connecting people on Facebook was building a "common global community" with
a "shared understanding" of the problems confronting humanity.
Oh, happy days. Oh, glad, confident morning. Sadly, over the past two years, it has
gradually become apparent that internet may pose a bigger threat to democracies
than to dictators.
For one thing, the growth of network platforms with unprecedented data-gathering
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capabilities has created new
opportunities for authoritarian regimes,
not least in China and Russia, to control
their own populations more effectively.
For another, the networks themselves
offer ways in which bad actors – and
not only the Russian government – can
undermine democracy by
A Facebook logo looms behind Mark Zuckerberg
disseminating fake news and extreme
at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park,
views. "These social platforms are all
Calif.
invented by very liberal people on the
MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS
west and east coasts," said Brad
Parscale, Mr. Trump's digital-media
director, in an interview last year. "And we figure out how to use it to push
conservative values. I don't think they thought that would ever happen." Too right.
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Having initially dismissed as "a pretty crazy idea" the notion that fake news on
Facebook had helped Mr. Trump to victory, Mr. Zuckerberg last year came clean:
Russians using false identities had paid for 3,000 Facebook advertisements that
sent implicitly pro-Trump messages to Americans before and after the election. By
some estimates, between 146 and 150 million users – more people than voted – had
seen posts from accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, a pro-Kremlin
organization, including around 16 million users of Instagram, which
Facebook owns.
One analysis of six Russia-linked Facebook pages found their posts had been shared
340 million times. And those were just six of 470 pages that Facebook had
identified as Russian. Trolls with false identities had also used Facebook Events (the
company's event-management tool) to promote political protests in the United
States, including an Aug. 27, 2016, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rally in a rural
Idaho town known to welcome refugees.
In May, 2016, two Russian-linked Facebook groups had organized simultaneous
opposing protests in front of the Islamic Da'wah Center of Houston. "Heart of
Texas," a bogus group claiming to favour Texas secession, had announced a noon
rally on May 21 to "Stop Islamification of Texas." Meanwhile, a separate Russiansponsored group, "United Muslims of America," had advertised a "Save Islamic
Knowledge" rally for exactly the same place and time. This wasn't the kind of
global community Mr. Zuckerberg had envisaged.
This is not just an American story. To an extent that is not well enough
appreciated, it is a global crisis of democracy. Similar efforts were made, albeit on a
smaller scale, to influence the outcome of the British referendum on European
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Union membership – mainly via fake
Twitter accounts – as well as last year's
elections in the Netherlands, France and
Germany. And the fact that the Russian
meddling in the 2016 U.S. election has
since become the focal point of
multiple inquiries in Washington –
which may even pose a threat to the
legitimacy and longevity of Mr.
Trump's presidency – does not mean
that similar things are not going on in
other countries even as you read this
article. Canadians have good reason to
worry about how social media could
impact the 2019 federal election. When
Facebook and Twitter told MPs last
year that they could increase public
engagement in the debates between
party leaders, some people wondered
how much of this would be provided by
Russian bots.
Yet the most alarming revelation of the
past year is not the importance of
Russian fake news, but its
After the 2016 election, Facebook unearthed
unimportance. Former president Barack
examples of a Russian misinformation campaign
Obama implicitly acknowledged that in
whose posts were shared millions of times on the
social network. Here are two examples
his recent Netflix interview with David
presented as evidence to Congress last year.
Letterman. Having swept into the White
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PERMANENT SELECT
House in 2008 as the first candidate of
COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
the social media age, Obama
acknowledged that he had "missed …
the degree to which people who are in power, special interests, foreign
governments, et cetera, can in fact manipulate [social media] and propagandize."
However, the former law professor made no attempt to lay all the blame on outside
forces. "What the Russians exploited," he said, "was already here … [The fact that]
we are operating in completely different information universes. If you watch Fox
News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you listen to NPR. That's
what's happening with these Facebook pages, where more and more people are
getting their news from. At a certain point, you just live in a bubble. And that's part
of why our politics is so polarized right now."
What happened in 2016 was much more than just a Kremlin "black op" that
exceeded expectations. It was a direct result of the profound change in the public
sphere brought about by the advent and spectacular growth of the online network
platforms. In many ways, the obsessive focus of the American political class on the
Russian sub-plot is a distraction from the alarming reality that – as the European
competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager argued earlier this month – the big
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tech companies, and the way their services are used by ordinary people, pose a
much bigger threat to democracy. It is the threat from within we really need to
worry about – not the threat from Putin.
Top apps by share of all smartphone touches
16%
15
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Facebook
Messages
Home screen
Chrome
Textra
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: DSCOUT
DATA SHARE
A POLARIZATION PROBLEM
W
e are nearly all addicts. The website eMarketer estimates that adult
Facebook users in the United States spent roughly 41 minutes a day on the
platform in 2017. And that's just our favourite app. The average smartphone user
clicks, taps and swipes that insidious little device an amazing 2,617 times a day.
And we don't just passively read. We engage. We like. We retweet. We reply. We
comment. Now, it must be admitted that most of what we write is inane. In Canada,
the five most-commonly used words in Facebook status updates are: "day,"
"hangover," "loud," "ticket" and "word." ("Hangover" is ranked 7th in Britain and
8th in the United States – make of that what you will.)
But a fair amount of what we engage with online is news. Two-thirds of U.S. adults
are on Facebook. Nearly half – 45 per cent – get news from Mr. Zuckerberg's
platform. More than one in 10 Americans get news from YouTube, while roughly
the same proportion (11 per cent) get news from Twitter. In Canada, 51 per cent of
people get their news from digital sources first.
Use and news consumption among U.S. adults, by source
Use site
Get news on site
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Facebook
66%
4
1
45
58
YouTube
18
26
Instagram
7
15
Twitter
11
21
LinkedIn
5
18
Snapchat
5
11
WhatApp
2
6
Reddit
Tumblr
4
4
1
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:PEW RESEARCH CENTER STUDY, 2017
DATA SHARE
As a recent Harvard paper co-authored by Gary King demonstrates, the network
platforms essentially amplify news from established news outlets. As they do so,
however, a strange thing happens. Whether one looks at blogs or at Twitter, social
media tend to promote polarization. Liberal bloggers link to liberal bloggers, rarely
to conservative ones. Liberal Twitter users re-tweet one another, seldom their
conservative counterparts. And tweets on political topics – gun control, same-sex
marriage, climate change – are 20 per cent more likely to be retweeted for every
moral or emotional word they employ.
Note also that political Twitter is not for everyone. As Daniel Hopkins, Ye Liu,
Daniel Preotiuc-Pietro and Lyle Ungar have shown, by analyzing nearly five million
tweets generated by four thousand Twitter accounts in August, 2016, it is "very
conservative" and "very liberal" users who are most likely to tweet political words.
Word use on Twitter by political figures and users by political type
% of total words used
Political words
Political names
Conservative political figures
Very conservative users
Conservatives
Mod. conservatives
Moderates
Mod. liberals
Liberals
Very liberal
Media/pundit names
3.48
2.95
0.79
0.18
1.03
0.72
0.51
0.45
0.58
0.66
0.98
Liberal political figures
3.92
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:BEYOND BINARY LABELS: POLITICAL IDEOLOGY PREDICTION OF TWITTER
USERS
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DATA SHARE
We see a similar phenomenon when we analyze the Facebook followers of U.S.
legislators. In both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the pattern is clear:
The more ideologically out there you are – whether to the left or the right – the
more followers you are likely to have.
In this context, it becomes apparent that Russian fake news represented a drop in
an ocean of inflammatory political commentary that was overwhelmingly
indigenous. Between March, 2015, and November, 2016, 128 million Americans
created nearly 10 billion Facebook posts, shares, likes and comments about the
election. Remember how many Russian ads there were? That's right: a paltry 3,000.
According to new research by Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College, Andrew Guess
of Princeton University and Jason Reifler of the University of Exeter, roughly one in
four Americans saw at least one false story in the run-up to the presidential
election. But fake stories were just 1 per cent of the news Hillary Clinton supporters
read, and 6 per cent of the news Trump supporters read.
Remember, too, that not all the Russian-sourced news was fake. The tens of
thousands of e-mails hacked from the accounts of John Podesta and other
Democrats were as real as they were confidential. But it wasn't the Russians who
were driving the traffic on the Breitbart website to record highs. It wasn't the
Russians who explained to the Trump campaign how they could use targeted
Facebook advertising to compensate – with precision – for what they lacked in
dollars. It was Silicon Valley: its big data, its algorithms, its employees.
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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
A MATTER OF PRIORITIES
D
on't take it from me. Take it from former Facebook staff who have spoken out
in the past year. Antonio Garcia Martinez, the former Facebook engineer and
author of the book Chaos Monkeys, put it starkly: "I think there's a real question if
democracy can survive Facebook and all the other Facebook-like platforms," he
said in an interview. "Before platforms like Facebook, the argument used to be that
you had a right to your own opinion. Now, it's more like the right to your
own reality."
Facebook's propaganda was all about building a global community. But in practice,
the company was laser-focused on the bottom line – and highly resistant to outside
criticism. Sandy Parakilas, who worked as an operations manager to fix privacy
problems on Facebook's developer platform in advance of its 2012 initial public
offering, has said that the company "prioritized data collection from its users over
protecting them from abuse."
"When I was at Facebook," he said last year, "the typical reaction I recall looked like
this: Try to put any negative press coverage to bed as quickly as possible, with no
sincere efforts to put safeguards in place or to identify and stop abusive
developers." The policy was to "react only when the press or regulators make
something an issue, and avoid any changes that would hurt the business of
collecting and selling data."
Perhaps the most scathing assessment came from former vice-president for user
growth, Chamath Palihapitiya. "I think," he told an audience of students at
Stanford's Graduate School of Business in December, "we have created tools that
are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. … The short-term,
dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society
works. No civil discourse, no co-operation: misinformation, mistrust. And it's not an
American problem – this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem."
Fmr. Facebook Exec: Social Media Ripping Apart Society, “You…
Chamath Palihapitiya speaks out about social media’s harmful effects on society
5:20
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Mr. Palihapitiya said he felt "tremendous guilt" about his own part in this because
he believed he and his former colleagues "kind of knew something bad would
happen." He is not alone in feeling guilty. Facebook's first president, Sean Parker,
has talked in similar terms. Another early employee told Vanity Fair, "Most of the
early employees I know are totally overwhelmed by what this thing has become.
They look at the role Facebook now plays in society … and they have this sort of
'Oh my God, what have I done' moment."
True, in recent months Facebook has scrambled to respond to all this recrimination.
On Sept. 21, for example, Mr. Zuckerberg pledged to work "pro-actively to
strengthen the democratic process." Facebook would require that all political ads
disclose which page paid for them and ensure that each ad is accessible to everyone.
Later last year, he announced plans to clamp down on "bad content and bad actors"
by doubling the number of employees and contractors who handle safety and
security issues to 20,000 by the end of 2018. And just last week, he announced an
overhaul of the News Feed to prioritize "meaningful interaction" between users
over the kind of media-generated content that advertisers like.
But if you think this kind of self-regulation is going to fix democracy's social-media
problem, then I have a bridge to sell you. For one thing, it would take at least an
order of magnitude more people to achieve meaningful monitoring of the vast
amount of content that Facebook's two billion-plus users produce and share every
day. For another, none of this alters the company's fundamental business model,
which is to sell advertisers the precision targeting that Facebook's user data allows.
Political advertising may henceforth be identified as such, in the way that it is on
television. But just how much less effective will that make it?
Google says it will curate its "News" search results more carefully, to rank
established newspaper sites above bulletin boards such as 4chan or Reddit, which
are favourite channels for alt-right content. Anyone who thinks that will stop
people reading fake news hasn't found the "scroll down" button on their keyboard.
The most followed world leaders on Twitter, 2017
@pontifex
33.7
7.4
30.1
@realDonaldTrump
30
@NarendraModi
18
@PMOIndia
17.8
@POTUS
14.4
@WhiteHouse
10.2
@RT_Erdogan
@SushmaSwaraj
@HHShkMohd
@jokowi
8
7.9
7.4
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TWIPLOMACY 2017
DATA SHARE
A NEW KIND OF POLITICS
T
he reality is, no matter how Facebook, Google and Twitter tweak their
algorithms, a new kind of politics has been born. It can no more be unborn
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than the new kind of politics born when television revealed how much betterlooking John F. Kennedy was than sweaty Richard Nixon, with his five o'clock
shadow. Or how easily Lyndon Johnson could make Barry Goldwater seem like a
man who wanted to drop atomic bombs on little children.
There are now two kinds of politicians in this world: the kind that know how to use
social media as a campaign tool and the ones who lose elections. All over the world,
the distinction is clear. The populists of the right and of the left understand the
power of social media. The moderates who occupy the centre ground, with few
exceptions – Justin "Selfie" Trudeau is one of them – are still playing by 1990s rules.
Among the few indicators that Mr. Trump had a good chance of beating Ms. Clinton
were his enormous leads on Facebook and Twitter throughout the 2016 campaign.
Applying similar metrics around the world yields startling results. Take Britain, for
example. The Leave campaign's victory in the 2016 referendum on Britain's
membership in the European Union owed a great deal to its pioneering use of
Facebook advertising. Yet the principal political beneficiary of Brexit – the woman
who became prime minister shortly after the referendum, Theresa May – is a socialmedia loser, with little more than half a million Facebook followers and even less
on Twitter. By comparison, the Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn – a grizzled populist
of the left in the style of Bernie Sanders – has 1.3 million followers on Facebook
followers and 1.7 million on Twitter (numbers as of Jan. 18). No other British
politician comes close. Boris Johnson is often mentioned in the same breath as Mr.
Trump, but all the two men really have in common is big hair. Mr. Corbyn has four
times more Twitter followers than "BoJo."
Follower counts of Britain's political figures
In millions
Twitter
Facebook
Theresa May
Boris Johnson
0.5
1.3
1.7
0.5
0.4
0.5
Jeremy Corbyn
1.3
1.7
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: FACEBOOK, SOCIALBLADE (AS OF JAN. 18, 2018)
DATA SHARE
Britain has no election scheduled for 2018 – although it is possible Ms. May's
woefully weak government could fall as the economic costs of Brexit make
themselves felt and the harsh realities of the EU's divorce terms become apparent.
Elsewhere, however, electorates are preparing to vote in general elections, notably
in Brazil, Colombia, Italy and Mexico. These contests will give us a chance to see
how far the new politics has spread.
Start with Brazil, a country whose political elite has been battered by corruption
scandals that led to the impeachment of the Workers' Party President Dilma Rouseff
and probably disqualify her predecessor, Luiz Lula da Silva, from running this year.
But who cares? Lula has three million Facebook followers and just 189,000 Twitter
followers. Far ahead of him on social media is Luciano Huck, the entrepreneur and
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television star, host of the hugely popular Saturday night TV show Caldeirao do
Huck. With 17 million Facebook followers and nearly 13 million on Twitter, Mr.
Huck is in a league of his own in Brazilian politics.
A Huck candidacy would be the Brazilian equivalent of Oprah Winfrey (FB 11.6m,
TW 41.4m) running for president in 2020. He is not a populist; he's just popular. In
second place, however, comes Jair Bolsonaro (FB 5m, TW 0.8m), the former army
parachutist whose political positions make Mr. Trump seem like a lily-livered
liberal. Mr. Bolsonaro is an unabashed defender of the military dictatorship that
ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. Name any politically incorrect position; Mr.
Bolsonaro has taken it. "I would never rape you," he once told a female politician,
"because you do not deserve it."
Follower counts of Brazil political figures
In millions
Twitter
Facebook
Luiz Lula da Silva
0.2
0.8
5.0 3
6
Dilma Rousseff
3
41.4
Luciano Huck
Jair Bolsonaro
11.6
0.8
5
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:FACEBOOK, SOCIALBLADE (AS OF JAN. 18, 2018)
DATA SHARE
Italian politics was in many ways the experimental laboratory for the kind of
candidate who combines wealth and celebrity with political incorrectness. Silvio
Berlusconi has claimed, not without justification, to have been the prototype
Trump. Despite a criminal conviction, Mr. Berlusconi is still a political player,
though more of a kingmaker than a candidate these days. Yet he is behind the times
(FB 1m, TW 19,300). The King of Twitter in Italy is former prime minister Matteo
Renzi (FB 1.1m, TW 3.34m), although on Facebook he trails the populists: the two
Five Star Movement leaders, Beppe Grillo (FB 1.9m, TW 2.5m) and Luigi di Maio (FB
1.1m, TW 0.3m), as well as the Northern League leader Matteo Salvini (FB 1.9m, TW
0.6m).
Follower counts of Italy's political figures
In millions
Twitter
Facebook
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Silvio Berlusconi
0.02
0.6
1.9
1
3.3
Matteo Renzi
1.1
2.5
Beppe Grillo
Luigi di Maio
1.9
0.3
Matteo Salvini
1.1
0.6
1.9
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:FACEBOOK, SOCIALBLADE (AS OF JAN. 18, 2018)
DATA SHARE
In Mexico, the best-known populist – Andrés Manuel López Obrador, universally
known by his initials as "AMLO" – is a man of the left. On social media (FB 2.3m,
TW 3.5m), AMLO is far ahead of the likely PRI nominee José Antonio Meade (FB
0.3m, TW 1m) and his PAN (National Action Party) counterpart Ricardo Anaya
Cortes (FB 0.9m, TW 0.4m). True, AMLO is not the most followed Mexican
politician: Rafael Moreno Valle, the former governor of Puebla, is now neck-andneck with him on Facebook. Only just behind AMLO on Twitter is the mayor of
Mexico City, Miguel Angel Mancera. But neither Moreno Valle nor Mancera is going
to be a presidential candidate.
Follower counts of Mexico's political figures
Millions
Twitter
Facebook
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
José Antonio Meade
Ricardo Anaya Cortes
3.5
0.4
0.9
2.3
1
0.3
0.4
0.9
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:FACEBOOK, SOCIALBLADE (AS OF JAN. 18, 2018)
DATA SHARE
Politics on Colombian social media also leans left. There, the leading figure is
Gustavo Petro (FB 0.9m, TW 2.8m), the former mayor of Bogotá, who as a young
man belonged to the guerrilla group the 19th of April Movement and who made his
political reputation as an opponent of the conservative presidency of Álvaro Uribe.
THE INESCAPABLE THREAT
I
t used to be that all politics was local. Today, perhaps, all politics is becoming
social, in that social media have emerged as the crucial battleground of modern
elections. Just a few years ago, that would have seemed like a good idea. What could
be more democratic, after all, than enabling politicians to communicate their
messages directly to individual voters, and to hear back from them in real time?
The only thing to worry about was whether or not online speech was truly free –
the core preoccupation of Freedom House's annual "Freedom on the Net" survey.
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But what if the biggest threat to democracy is not online censorship or surveillance,
but the near-total absence of regulation of politics on social media? The public is
beginning to sense this. A new Gallup-Knight survey, published last week, revealed
that 57 per cent of Americans think that the way sites choose which stories to show
to users presents "a major problem" for democracy. Just less than half of those
interviewed favoured regulation of how the network platforms provide news.
The difficulty is knowing what form regulation should take. As Sam Lessin –
another former Facebooker – has argued, the real transformation of the public
sphere is that a candidate "can for the first time effectively talk to each individual
voter privately in their own home and tell them exactly what they want to hear …
in a way that can't be tracked or audited."
Forget fake news, Mr. Lessin argues. Forget the "feed bubbles" and "echo chambers"
that have dominated the discussion in the United States. The real challenge is not
that the public sphere has grown polarized. The challenge is that it has been so
fragmented by misnamed social media that it is no longer a single public sphere.
"It has been a foregone conclusion for a long time," Mr. Lessin concludes, doubtless
remembering the inspirational Zuckerberg speeches of the pre-2016 era, "that the
internet has been a vehicle for moving us toward speaking one common language
and being able to work together to solve the great problems of our era. … The sad
reality is that the most exciting attempt to bring our world together is putting us at
risk of not being able to trust what we see or hear" – but (and this is the point he
missed) voting for the most engaging candidate anyway.
Hit "esc" all you like. This is the real – and inescapable – threat facing every
democracy today.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
MODERN MEDIA: MORE FROM THE GLOBE AND MAIL
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Your smartphone is making you stupid,
antisocial and unhealthy. So why can’t you put
it down?
A decade ago, smart devices promised to change the
way we think and interact, and they have – but not
by making us smarter. Eric Andrew-Gee explores
the growing body of scientific evidence that digital
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January 22, 2018
Hard Questions: What
Effect Does Social
Media Have on
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2014
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Posted by Facebook
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Featured News
By Samidh Chakrabarti, Product Manager, Civic
Engagement
This post is part of a series on social media and
democracy.
Hard Questions: What is
Facebook Doing to
Protect Election
Security?
March 29, 2018
We want to provide regular
Around the world, social media is making it easier
updates on what we’re doing
for people to have a voice in government — to
discuss issues, organize around causes, and hold
leaders accountable. As recently as 2011, when
social media played a critical role in the Arab
Spring in places like Tunisia, it was heralded as a
technology for liberation.
and the progress we’re
making.
Read more
A lot has changed since then. The 2016 US
presidential election brought to the fore the risks
of foreign meddling, “fake news” and political
polarization. The effect of social media on politics
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/
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has never been so crucial to examine.
All of this raises an important question: what effect
It’s Time to Make Our
Privacy Tools Easier to
Find
does social media have on democracy?
March 28, 2018
We’ve heard loud and clear
As the product manager in charge of civic
that privacy settings and
engagement on Facebook, I live and breathe these
other important tools are too
issues. And while I’m an optimist at heart, I’m not
blind to the damage that the internet can do to
Read more
hard to find and that…
even a well-functioning democracy.
That’s why I’m dedicated to understanding these
risks and ensuring the good far overshadows the
bad.
With each passing year, this challenge becomes
more urgent. Facebook was originally designed to
connect friends and family — and it has excelled at
that. But as unprecedented numbers of people
channel their political energy through this medium,
it’s being used in unforeseen ways with societal
repercussions that were never anticipated.
In 2016, we at Facebook were far too slow to
recognize how bad actors were abusing our
platform. We’re working diligently to neutralize
these risks now.
We can’t do this alone, which is why we want to
initiate an open conversation on the hard
questions this work raises. In this post, I’ll share
how we are thinking about confronting the most
consequential downsides of social media on
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democracy, and also discuss how we’re working to
amplify the positive ways it can strengthen
democracy, too.
Foreign Interference
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Around
the US 2016 election, Russian entities set up and
promoted fake Pages on Facebook to influence
public sentiment — essentially using social media
as an information weapon.
Although we didn’t know it at the time, we
discovered that these Russian actors created
80,000 posts that reached around 126 million
people in the US over a two-year period. This kind
of activity goes against everything we stand for. It’s
abhorrent to us that a nation-state used our
platform to wage a cyberwar intended to divide
society. This was a new kind of threat that we
couldn’t easily predict, but we should have done
better.
Now we’re making up for lost time. The Russian
interference worked in part by promoting
inauthentic Pages, so we’re working to make
politics on Facebook more transparent. We’re
making it possible to visit an advertiser’s Page and
see the ads they’re currently running. We’ll soon
also require organizations running election-related
ads to confirm their identities so we can show
viewers of their ads who exactly paid for them.
Finally, we’ll archive electoral ads and make them
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searchable to enhance accountability.
As critical as this plan is, it poses challenges. How,
for example, do we avoid putting legitimate activity
at risk? Many human rights organizations
commonly use Facebook to spread educational
messages around the world. The wrong kind of
transparency could put these activists in real
danger in many countries.
But we’re committed to this issue of transparency
because it goes beyond Russia. Without
transparency, it can be hard to hold politicians
accountable for their own words. Micro-targeting
can enable dishonest campaigns to spread toxic
discourse without much consequence. Democracy
then suffers because we don’t get the full picture
of what our leaders are promising us. This is an
even more pernicious problem than foreign
interference. But we hope that by setting a new bar
for transparency, we can tackle both of these
challenges simultaneously.
False News
But foreign interference isn’t the only means of
corrupting a democracy. We recognize that the
same tools that give people more voice can
sometimes be used, by anyone, to spread hoaxes
and misinformation. There is active debate about
how much of our information diet is tainted by
false news — and how much it influences people’s
behavior. But even a handful of deliberately
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misleading stories can have dangerous
consequences.
To take just one example, in Australia a false news
story claimed that the first Muslim woman to be a
Member of Parliament had refused to lay a wreath
on a national day of remembrance. This led people
to flood her Facebook Page with abusive
comments.
In the public debate over false news, many believe
Facebook should use its own judgment to filter out
misinformation. We’ve chosen not to do that
because we don’t want to be the arbiters of truth,
nor do we imagine this is a role the world would
want for us.
Instead, we’ve made it easier to report false news
and have taken steps in partnership with thirdparty fact checkers to rank these stories lower in
News Feed. Once our fact checking partners label a
story as false, we’re able to reduce future
impressions of the story on Facebook by 80%.
We’re also working to make it harder for bad
actors to profit from false news, eliminating their
incentive to create this content in the first place.
Finally, since the best deterrent will ultimately be a
discerning public, we’ve started sharing more
context about the news sources people see on
Facebook. By helping people sharpen their social
media literacy, we can help society be more
resilient to misleading stories.
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Even with all these countermeasures, the battle will
never end. Misinformation campaigns are not
amateur operations. They are professionalized and
constantly try to game the system. We will always
have more work to do.
Echo Chambers
One of the most common criticisms of social
media is that it creates echo chambers where
people only see viewpoints they agree with —
further driving us apart.
That’s a legitimate issue but it’s more complex than
how it is sometimes portrayed. Compared with the
media landscape of the past, social media exposes
us to a more diverse range of views. A recent
Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that
44% of people in the US who use social media for
news end up seeing sources from both the left and
the right — more than twice the rate of people
who don’t use social media.
The deeper question is how people respond when
they encounter these differing opinions — do they
listen to them, ignore them, or even block them?
Think about how our minds work. It’s natural to
seek out information that confirms what we
already believe — a phenomenon social scientists
call “confirmation bias.” Walter Quattrociocchi,
Antonio Scala and Cass Sunstein found evidence
last year that social media users are drawn to
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information that strengthens their preferred
narratives and reject information that undermines
it.
That makes bursting these bubbles hard because it
requires pushing against deeply ingrained human
instincts. Research shows that some obvious ideas
— like showing people an article from an opposing
perspective — could actually make us dig in even
more.
A better approach might be to show people many
views, not just the opposing side. We recently
started testing this idea with a feature called
Related Articles that shows people articles with a
range of perspectives on the news they’re already
reading about. We’ll see if it helps, and we’re eager
to share our findings.
Political Harassment
While we want Facebook to be a safe place for
people to express themselves politically, we need
to make sure no one is bullied or threatened for
their views.
To make matters more complex, governments
themselves sometimes engage in such harassment.
In one country we recently visited, a citizen
reported that after he had posted a video critical of
the authorities, the police paid him a visit to
inspect his tax compliance. As more countries write
laws that attempt to criminalize online discourse,
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the risk grows that states use their power to
intimidate their critics. That could have a chilling
effect on speech.
Even in more open societies, we’re seeing cases
where government officials write hateful posts that
make enforcing our Community Standards
challenging. So far, we’ve kept such posts up on
our platform since we view them as newsworthy
information that citizens deserve to know. We’ve
also found these posts often become important
magnets for counter-speech, but we recognize
reasonable people may disagree with this policy.
Our concerns with political hate speech aren’t
limited to the online sphere — we also need to be
vigilant that social media doesn’t facilitate offline
violence.
Policing this content at a global scale is an open
research problem since it is hard for machines to
understand the cultural nuances of political
intimidation. And while we are hiring over 10,000
more people this year to work on safety and
security, this is likely to remain a challenge.
Unequal Participation
While foreign meddling, misinformation, echo
chambers and hate speech get the headlines, what
worries me most is how social media can distort
policymakers’ perception of public opinion. People
on Facebook tend to represent every walk of life,
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but not everyone is using their voice equally. Take
women. They represent a majority of the
population, yet are under-represented in public
political dialogue on Facebook.
If politicians mistake the views of a few with the
views of many, that can make for bad public policy.
Vulnerable populations could end up ignored, and
fringe groups could appear mainstream.
We’re trying to move the needle on this by
studying, for example, why women participate less
in political discourse online. In some of our civic
features, we’ve incorporated these lessons and
pioneered new privacy models that help to
increase women’s participation. They still aren’t on
par with men, but we’re getting closer. This is
proof in my eyes that research-driven design can
make social media a better medium for democracy.
Giving Voice
Clearly, there is no shortage of challenges at the
convergence of social media and democracy. But
there are also many bright spots that keep me
coming to work every day.
First, social media has enormous power to keep
people informed. According to the Pew Research
Center, two-thirds of US adults consume at least
some of their news on social media. Since many
people are happening upon news they weren’t
explicitly seeking out, social media is often
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expanding the audience for news.
More importantly, people aren’t just reading news
— they’re actively discussing it. The implications
for civic engagement are profound. It has long
been observed that when people discuss the news,
they’re more likely to be involved in their
community, whether by volunteering or reaching
out to elected officials. There is growing evidence
that this is also true for social media — especially
among young people.
Social media platforms are driving people not just
to learn about issues but to take action. During the
2016 US election alone, we estimate our voter
registration efforts on Facebook led more than 2
million people to register to vote.
Even more encouraging is that we’re seeing how
social media can help people be more
knowledgeable voters. During the last US election,
we created Voting Plan, a tool to preview your local
ballot and discuss it with friends. Millions of people
did so. On average this increased people’s
knowledge of their ballot by over 6%. That’s
equivalent to raising the average ballot knowledge
of the entire US Facebook community by a few
grade levels.
But perhaps what inspires me most of all is that
with social media, people can have a voice in their
government everyday, not just on election day.
Some 87% of governments around the world have
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a presence on Facebook. And they’re listening —
and responding — to what they hear.
In Iceland, for example, when someone moves to a
new neighborhood, the first thing they often do is
join their community’s Facebook group. They tag
their representatives in posts and push for the
issues they want taken to Parliament.
Conversations like these are quietly reinvigorating
local governance around the world.
To bring this experience to more people, in 2016
we built a feature that makes it simple to follow all
your elected representatives on Facebook with a
single click. When we launched it in the US, it
doubled the number of connections between
people and their government. We’ve since seen a
similar level of impact in other places like Germany
and Japan.
This means that for the first time in history, people
can keep up with their government as easily as they
keep up with their friends. This is unlocking new
waves of latent civic energy and putting power into
more hands.
So, What Effect Does Social Media Have on
Democracy?
If there’s one fundamental truth about social
media’s impact on democracy it’s that it amplifies
human intent — both good and bad. At its best, it
allows us to express ourselves and take action. At
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its worst, it allows people to spread misinformation
and corrode democracy.
I wish I could guarantee that the positives are
destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can’t.
That’s why we have a moral duty to understand
how these technologies are being used and what
can be done to make communities like Facebook
as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible.
This is a new frontier and we don’t pretend to have
all the answers. But I promise you that my team
and many more here are dedicated to this pursuit.
We’ll share what we learn and collaborate with you
to find the answers.
What gives me hope is that the same ingenuity that
helped make social media an incredible way to
connect with friends can also be applied to making
it an effective way to connect with the public
square.
In the end, that’s why I believe that a more
connected world can be a more democratic one.
Samidh Chakrabarti is a product manager at
Facebook, where he is responsible for politics and
elections products globally. Before coming to
Facebook, he was the product lead for Google’s
civic engagement initiative. His background is in
both technology and public policy, and he’s spent
his career working to combine them in service of
the common good.
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30 Comments
Sort by
Top
Add a comment...
Rodney Bertelli
Hello Samidh. So, you are going to employ "3rd
Party Fact Checkers" huh? Forgive my
skepticism, but just who are these "3rd Party
Fact Checkers" going to be and can the first two
parties (your customers) trust them completely.
will you be having your foxes guarding my hen
house? I noticed that you didn't say
"independent 3rd party fact checkers" or
"bipartisan fact checkers". Who will "check'
YOUR "Fact Checkers"? Will certain "facts" be
ignored in order to justify the "facts" that fit a
certain narrative? Just like the IRS and the FBI
who conveniently lose key data or use their
immense power... See More
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5 · 9w
Claude Courouve
Yes, Who will "check' YOUR "Fact
Checkers"?
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 9w
Rodney Bertelli
Claude Courouve Your retort validates
my question to Facebook and their
promises for "fact checkers". I try to
seek input from multiple sources
(especially ones that I do not agree with,
because I do believe it is good to know
what your political opposition is
thinking), but I distrust unnamed source
"information", snarky internet trolls and
echo chamber news outlets where
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/
4/1/18, 9?36 PM
Page 14 of 19
echo chamber news outlets where
EVERYONE uses the exact same
language, words and phrases in the
exact same order and manner as if they
are unoriginal robots It is obvious that
the robots get "porgrammed" from a
single source memo.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 9w
Facebook
The outside fact-checkers we work with
include AP, Politifact, Factcheck.org,
Snopes and the Weekly Standard. Each
are approved by Poynter Institute and
follow their code of conduct.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
2 · 9w
Show 1 more reply in this thread
Lucas Cioffi
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
Hello Samidh, thanks for opening up this
conversation. In the video, you mention that it's
important that people have an opportunity to
engage in conversation around the news.
Has your team considered creating a tool for
deeper conversations on Facebook? The way
Facebook comments are currently implemented
leaves a lot to be desired.
Commenting on a photo and commenting on
news are two very different experiences, so it
would be wonderful if people weren't
constrained to using the same tool for both.
I'd also point out that I cannot @-mention you
here in this comment, so I don't expect that you
will even see or respond to this comment. If you
do, I would be impressed! When middle-of-theroad people like me don't have faith in your
tools, we are less likely to spend time using
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4/1/18, 9?36 PM
Page 15 of 19
them, and louder people who are on the fringes
dominate.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
1 · 9w
Samidh Chakrabarti
There is definitely a lot of room for
innovation when it comes to
commenting systems. We have a whole
team working on this problem and trying
to create better incentives for civil,
constructive conversations. Definitely a
hard problem, but one we're dedicated
to improving.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
10 · 9w
Robert Bjarnason
Langholtsskóli
Dear Samidh,
Thanks for a good insightful article. My name is
Robert Bjarnason and I’m the president of the
Citizens Foundation in Iceland, a non-profit
organization promoting democratic innovation
and citizen participation in Iceland and the world
since 2008.
Regarding your comment about when people in
Iceland move to a new neighborhood they join
community groups then yes, this is common.
But your example of people tagging their
representatives to push for issues does happen
but is not that common, if you have any inside
statistics on this type of activity we’d love to
know more.
Amongst m... See More
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4 · 9w · Edited
Gunnar Grímsson
Kosningastjóri í Reykjanesbæ at Píratar
Very good comment, an answer to this
question: "Do we think it’s good for
democracy and trust in society to have
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/
4/1/18, 9?36 PM
Page 16 of 19
democracy and trust in society to have
private companies with profit motives
develope and operate our democratic
processes?" would be most interesting
from Samidh.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 9w
Ron Chusid
Spring Lake, Michigan
Democracy thrives with open discussion, but
instead Facebook had been censoring political
discussion, using algorithms which incorrectly
label comments as spam, or perhaps due to
falling for partisans who file false complaints
because they disagree with a post.
Democracy thrives with the free spread of
information, but instead Facebook also
frequently blocks posts with links, falsely calling
them spam, or perhaps seeing them as fake
news. Labels of fake news have far too often
been used as an excuse for censorship.
Rather than finding ways to restrict discussion, if
you believe in democracy you should be getting
out of way and allow us to freely discuss the
issues and share information.
Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
4 · 9w
Chris Meeks
Xavier University
I applaud Facebook’s transparency about the
good and the bad inherent in social media as it’s
currently manifested. We now know the
sobering truth and Facebook is acknowledging
the danger, which is something to build on.
What I’d like to know is: will Facebook continue
to enable the unhealthy behaviors inherent in
human psychology? As you’ve noted,
confirmation bias and social media addiction are
unhealthy (even if profitable). Will you push
against profitable decisions for the benefits of
emotional well-being? If you definitively answer
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/
4/1/18, 9?36 PM
Page 17 of 19
emotional well-being? If you definitively answer
“Yes!”, then you will have a true guiding
principle, a ... See More
Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 9w
Facebook
Thank you for the comment. We take
that responsibility you describe very
seriously. One of our company priorities
this year is making sure the time people
spend on Facebook is time well spent.
We’re investing in research to better
understand the relationship between
social media and well-being, and
Category: Hard
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Letter to America, by Margaret Atwood (2003)
ORIGINAL TEXT
Dear America:
This is a difficult letter to write, because I’m no longer sure who you are. Some of you may be having the same
trouble.
I thought I knew you: We’d become well acquainted over the past fifty-five years. You were the Mickey Mouse
and Donald Duck comic books I read in the late 1940s. You were the radio shows–Jack Benny, Our Miss Brooks. You were
the music I sang and danced to: the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, the Platters, Elvis. You were a ton of fun.
You wrote some of my favorite books. You created Huckleberry Finn, and Hawkeye, and Beth and Jo in Little
Women, courageous in their different ways. Later, you were my beloved Thoreau, father of environmentalism, witness to
individual conscience; and Walt Whitman, singer of the great Republic; and Emily Dickinson, keeper of the private soul.
You were Hammett and Chandler, heroic walkers of mean streets; even later, you were the amazing trio, Hemingway,
Fitzgerald and Faulkner, who traced the dark labyrinths of your hidden heart. You were Sinclair Lewis and Arthur Miller,
who, with their own American idealism, went after the sham in you, because they thought you could do better.
You were Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, you were Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo, you were Lillian Gish
in Night of the Hunter. You stood up for freedom, honesty and justice; you protected the innocent. I believed most of that.
I think you did, too. It seemed true at the time.
You put God on the money, though, even then. You had a way of thinking that the things of Caesar were the
same as the things of God: That gave you self-confidence. You have always wanted to be a city upon a hill, a light to all
nations, and for a while you were. Give me your tired, your poor, you sang, and for a while you meant it.
We’ve always been close, you and us. History, that old entangler, has twisted us together since the early
seventeenth century. Some of us used to be you; some of us want to be you; some of you used to be us. You are not only
our neighbors: In many cases–mine, for instance–you are also our blood relations, our colleagues and our personal friends.
But although we’ve had a ringside seat, we’ve never understood you completely, up here north of the 49th parallel. We’re
like Romanized Gauls–look like Romans, dress like Romans, but aren’t Romans–peering over the wall at the real Romans.
What are they doing? Why? What are they doing now? Why is the haruspex eyeballing the sheep’s liver? Why is the
soothsayer wholesaling the Bewares?
Perhaps that’s been my difficulty in writing you this letter: I’m not sure I know what’s really going on. Anyway, you
have a huge posse of experienced entrail-sifters who do nothing but analyze your every vein and lobe. What can I tell you
about yourself that you don’t already know?
This might be the reason for my hesitation: embarrassment, brought on by a becoming modesty. But it is more
likely to be embarrassment of another sort. When my grandmother–from a New England background–was confronted with
an unsavory topic, she would change the subject and gaze out the window. And that is my own inclination: Keep your
mouth shut, mind your own business.
But I’ll take the plunge, because your business is no longer merely your business. To paraphrase Marley’s Ghost,
who figured it out too late, mankind is your business. And vice versa: When the Jolly Green Giant goes on the rampage,
many lesser plants and animals get trampled underfoot. As for us, you’re our biggest trading partner: We know perfectly
well that if you go down the plug-hole, we’re going with you. We have every reason to wish you well.
I won’t go into the reasons why I think your recent Iraqi adventures have been–taking the long view–an ill-advised
tactical error. By the time you read this, Baghdad may or may not be a pancake, and many more sheep entrails will have
been examined. Let’s talk, then, not about what you’re doing to other people but about what you’re doing to yourselves.
You’re gutting the Constitution. Already your home can be entered without your knowledge or permission, you
can be snatched away and incarcerated without cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why
isn’t this a recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation and fraud? I know you’ve been told that all this is for
your own safety and protection, but think about it for a minute. Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn’t used to
be easily frightened.
You’re running up a record level of debt. Keep spending at this rate and pretty soon you won’t be able to afford
any big military adventures. Either that or you’ll go the way of the USSR: lots of tanks, but no air conditioning. That will
make folks very cross. They’ll be even crosser when they can’t take a shower because your shortsighted bulldozing of
environmental protections has dirtied most of the water and dried up the rest. Then things will get hot and dirty indeed.
You’re torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be not to produce anything
yourselves but to grab stuff other people produce, at gunboat-diplomacy prices? Is the world going to consist of a few
mega-rich King Midases, with the rest being serfs, both inside and outside your country? Will the biggest business sector
in the United States be the prison system? Let’s hope not.
If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop admiring the good things
about you. They’ll decide that your city upon the hill is a slum and your democracy is a sham, and therefore you have no
business trying to impose your sullied vision on them. They’ll think you’ve abandoned the rule of law. They’ll think you’ve
fouled your own nest.
The British used to have a myth about King Arthur. He wasn’t dead, but sleeping in a cave, it was said; and in the
country’s hour of greatest peril, he would return. You too have great spirits of the past you may call upon: men and women
of courage, of conscience, of prescience. Summon them now, to stand with you, to inspire you, to defend the best in you.
You need them.
1
In order to provide international perspective in the debate over US foreign policy, [the news
magazine,] The Nation, asked foreign commentators to share their reflections. This is the
seventh in that series. –The Editors
Letter to America
By Margaret Atwood, Canadian Author
The Nation MARCH 27, 2003
This is written as an
open letter to the US,
but it still functions as an
essay that makes an
argument. The letter
format is a literary
device.
Main Claim
Context & Contrast
Subclaim
Rhetorical
Device/Tone
Evidence
Reasoning/Principles
Uh oh. Tone is somber.
Something is wrong.
Dear America:
This is a difficult letter to write, because I’m no longer sure who you are. Some of you
may be having the same trouble.
I thought I knew you: We’d become well acquainted over the past fifty-five years.
Nostalgic
You were the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic books I read in the late 1940s. You
and
were the radio shows–Jack Benny, Our Miss Brooks. You were the music I sang and
endearing
danced to: the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, the Platters, Elvis. You were a ton of fun.
cultural
icons of
You wrote some of my favorite books. You created Huckleberry Finn, and
America.
Hawkeye, and Beth and Jo in Little Women, courageous in their different ways. Later,
The
you were my beloved Thoreau, father of environmentalism, witness to individual
context
conscience; and Walt Whitman, singer of the great Republic; and Emily Dickinson,
of “what
was.”
keeper of the private soul. You were Hammett and Chandler, heroic walkers of mean
streets; even later, you were the amazing trio, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, who
traced the dark labyrinths of your hidden heart. You were Sinclair Lewis and Arthur Miller, who,
with their own American idealism, went after the sham in you, because they thought you could
do better.
You were Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, you were Humphrey Bogart in Key
Largo, you were Lillian Gish in Night of the Hunter. You stood up for freedom, honesty and
Start of
justice; you protected the innocent. I believed most of that. I think you did, too. It seemed
critique:
point
true at the time.
one: US
You put God on the money, though, even then. You had a way of thinking that the
equates
things of Caesar were the same as the things of God: That gave you self-confidence. You
things of
have always wanted to be a city upon a hill, a light to all nations, and for a while you were.
Caesar
(political
Give me your tired, your poor, you sang, and for a while you meant it.
things)
We’ve always been close, you and us. History, that old entangler, has
Establishes
with
twisted us together since the early seventeenth century. Some of us used to
relationship
things of
between US
and Canada
as one of
affiliation,
but unequal
affiliation
be you; some of us want to be you; some of you used to be us. You are
not only our neighbors: In many cases–mine, for instance–you are also
our blood relations, our colleagues and our personal friends. But although
we’ve had a ringside seat, we’ve never understood you completely, up here
north of the 49th parallel. We’re like Romanized Gauls–look like Romans, dress
like Romans, but aren’t Romans–peering over the wall at the real Romans.
What are they doing? Why? What are they doing now? Why is the haruspex
eyeballing the sheep’s liver? Why is the soothsayer wholesaling
The US has a mystical
the Bewares?
quality in its power.
God
(spiritual
things; or
supreme
human
values).
As
though
we think
we’re
gods?
2
Perhaps that’s been my difficulty in writing you this letter: I’m not sure I know what’s
really going on. Anyway, you have a huge posse of experienced entrail-sifters who do nothing
but analyze your every vein and lobe. What can I tell you about yourself that
These were
you don’t already know?
Roman
This might be the reason for my hesitation: embarrassment,
Speaker
sacrificial
wants to be
brought on by a becoming modesty. But it is more likely to be
rituals for
polite, but
embarrassment of another sort. When my grandmother–from a New
divination,
feels
like reading
England background–was confronted with an unsavory topic, she
compelled to
tea leaves.
would change the subject and gaze out the window. And that is my
say
own inclination: Keep your mouth shut, mind your own business.
something.
We are all (the
But I’ll take the plunge, because your business is no longer merely your
whole world)
business. To paraphrase Marley’s Ghost, who figured it out too late, mankind is your
in it together
business. And vice versa: When the Jolly Green Giant goes on the rampage, many
and all have
lesser plants and animals get trampled underfoot. As for us, you’re our biggest trading
responsibility.
partner: We know perfectly well that if you go down the plug-hole, we’re going with you.
We have every reason to wish you well.
Strategic and
rhetorical
I won’t go into the reasons why I think your recent Iraqi adventures have been–
strategy –
taking the long view–an ill-advised tactical error. By the time you read this, Baghdad
here’s she’s
may or may not be a pancake, and many more sheep entrails will have been
turning to face
examined. Let’s talk, then, not about what you’re doing to other people but about
her subject.
what you’re doing to yourselves.
The main
claim may
You’re gutting the Constitution. Already your home can be entered without
relate to this
your knowledge or permission, you can be snatched away and incarcerated without
maneuver.
cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why isn’t this a
recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation and fraud? I know you’ve been told
that all this is for your own safety and protection, but think about it for a minute. Anyway, when
did you get so scared? You didn’t used to be easily frightened.
You’re running up a record level of debt. Keep spending at this rate and pretty soon you
won’t be able to afford any big military adventures. Either that or you’ll go the way of the
USSR: lots of tanks, but no air conditioning. That will make folks very cross. They’ll be even
crosser when they can’t take a shower because your shortsighted bulldozing of environmental
protections has dirtied most of the water and dried up the rest. Then things will get hot and
dirty indeed.
You’re torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be not
to produce anything yourselves but to grab stuff other people produce, at gunboat-diplomacy
prices? Is the world going to consist of a few mega-rich King Midases, with the rest being
serfs, both inside and outside your country? Will the biggest business sector in the United
States be the prison system? Let’s hope not.
If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop
admiring the good things about you. They’ll decide that your city upon the hill is a slum and
your democracy is a sham, and therefore you have no business trying to impose your sullied
vision on them. They’ll think you’ve abandoned the rule of law. They’ll think you’ve fouled your
own nest.
The British used to have a myth about King Arthur. He wasn’t dead, but sleeping in a
cave, it was said; and in the country’s hour of greatest peril, he would return. You too have
great spirits of the past you may call upon: men and women of courage, of conscience, of
prescience. Summon them now, to stand with you, to inspire you, to defend the best in you.
You need them.
3
SAMPLE PRECIS
Precis: “Letter to America
In the midst of US involvement in Iraq in 2003, Canadian novelist, activist, and inventor
Margaret Atwood argues in “Letter to America” that the US must call upon the best of itself to
right its historical course if it hopes to carry on as a world leader. Atwood contends that the US’s
foreign policy in 2003 has hurt the US because it violated the Constitution, ran up massive debt,
harmed the US economy, and harmed the US’s position as an influential world leader, capable
of bringing and affirming principles democracy and the rule of law to countries around the globe
(1). Atwood writes this open letter to encourage the US to reconsider its foreign policy and make
a course correction in order to live out its promise and fortify all countries that depend on its
sound foreign policy. Atwood makes a logical and appropriately emotional plea intended to reach
those in power who can effect change in US foreign policy and a to general audience that can
encourage necessary changes to US foreign policy through the democratic process.
How sound is this source and why? Margaret Atwood was approached by the publication, The
Nation (liberal orientation), to comment on US foreign policy. She was sought out as a political
thinker, an ability she demonstrates in her novels such as A Handmaid’s Tale. While her work
appears to be written from a personal, nostalgic, and folksy perspective, the force of the piece
credibly reaches into the larger stage of world affairs. However, to support her claims, she provides
more rhetorical questions than evidence (which might only convince those who are already
convinced). In all, this work might provide context or quotes for a scholarly essay but wouldn’t be
appropriate as a key source. Instead, she raises questions to help galvanize political and public
opinion and possibly for further scholarly study.
What do you especially agree with based on your current understanding and why? I am
persuaded by the notion that all countries share entwined fates and that we must work together
(and as equals). The US has come to occupy an overly powerful position in the world stage,
reaching into countries to influence their political processes and in significant cases to the
detriment of their people. I do think the US forgets its secular and fallible position in the world, as
Atwood alludes to. As I recall, the war in Iraq was fought based on false information; it seems now
as though it resulted from political manipulation and possibly for corporate and political gain –
which underscores Atwood’s notion that we are off-course. I do recall the near collapse of our
economy in 2008 that she predicts. She also refers to the prison problem in the US which makes
me think she has been aware of other significant problems in this country that demonstrate the
need for a course correction. Her rhetorical strategies (evoking nostalgia, getting readers to think
about what America once was, speaking as a trusted neighbor chatting over the fence, the
appropriate gravity of her “We have to talk” tone) are effective.
What do you especially disagree with based on your current understanding and why? I don’t
disagree with her points; I recognize dangers she describes as real, and I see the consequences she
depicts played out in real life. It wasn’t especially meaty, though, to find much room for debate.
Has your thinking about your chosen topic changed as a result of this source and why/why
not? It affirms what I have thought with many years of hindsight since 2003. I think under all
administrations, we continue to make poor foreign policy choices.
4
Last Name 1
Name
Instructor Trina Larson
ENGL 124
Day Month Year
Rhetorical Précis: Title of Source 1
Begin by annotating your texts; then follow the format for your first précis, here. You can type the body
single-spaced to make each entry easier to read. For more information on the contents of the précis, visit our
instructional pages in Canvas. In short, each précis should include a) in a single coherent sentence, the name of
the author, author’s profession, and title of their work, a rhetorically accurate verb (e.g., assert, argue, deny,
refute, prove, disprove, explain), and a “that” clause containing the main claim of the work; b) in a single
coherent sentence, an explanation of how the author develops and supports the major claim with key subclaims
that are specifically named, between commas or semi-colons, including a citation; c) in a single coherent
sentence, the author's purpose, followed by an "in order to" phrase; and d) in a single coherent sentence a
description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience and/or
perceived biases of the author. Following each précis, respond to the following questions, then upload this
document and your annotated source texts to the submission site I’ll create for you each week.
How sound is this source and why? Response
What do you find strong or especially agree with based on your current understanding and
why? Response
What do you find weak, fallacious, or especially disagree with based on your current
understanding and why? Response
Has your thinking about your chosen topic changed as a result of this source and why/why
not? Response
Works Cited
This is only for sources you find through independent research in Weeks 13-14.
For the purposes of this assignment only, Works Cited does not require its own page.
Type the correct template for this kind of entry from Purdue OWL handout here
Type the correct entry for your entry here, following the pattern of the template shown above.
1
Last Name 2
Rhetorical Précis: Title of Source 2
Begin by annotating your texts; then follow the format for your first précis, here. You can type the body
single-spaced to make each entry easier to read. For more information on the contents of the précis, visit our
instructional pages in Canvas. In short, each précis should include a) in a single coherent sentence, the name of
the author, author’s profession, and title of their work, a rhetorically accurate verb (e.g., assert, argue, deny,
refute, prove, disprove, explain), and a “that” clause containing the main claim of the work; b) in a single
coherent sentence, an explanation of how the author develops and supports the major claim with key subclaims
that are specifically named, between commas or semi-colons, including a citation; c) in a single coherent
sentence, the author's purpose, followed by an "in order to" phrase; and d) in a single coherent sentence a
description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience and/or
perceived biases of the author. Following each précis, respond to the following questions, then upload this
document and your annotated source texts to the submission site I’ll create for you each week.
How sound is this source and why? Response
What do you find strong or especially agree with based on your current understanding and
why? Response
What do you find weak, fallacious, or especially disagree with based on your current
understanding and why? Response
Has your thinking about your chosen topic changed as a result of this source and why/why
not? Response
Works Cited
This is only for sources you find through independent research in Weeks 13-14.
For the purposes of this assignment only, Works Cited does not require its own page.
Type the correct template for this kind of entry from Purdue OWL handout here
Type the correct entry for your entry here, following the pattern of the template shown above.
2
Last Name 3
Rhetorical Précis: Title of Source 3 (Week 13 Only)
Begin by annotating your texts; then follow the format for your first précis, here. You can type the body
single-spaced to make each entry easier to read. For more information on the contents of the précis, visit our
instructional pages in Canvas. In short, each précis should include a) in a single coherent sentence, the name of
the author, author’s profession, and title of their work, a rhetorically accurate verb (e.g., assert, argue, deny,
refute, prove, disprove, explain), and a “that” clause containing the main claim of the work; b) in a single
coherent sentence, an explanation of how the author develops and supports the major claim with key subclaims
that are specifically named, between commas or semi-colons, including a citation; c) in a single coherent
sentence, the author's purpose, followed by an "in order to" phrase; and d) in a single coherent sentence a
description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience and/or
perceived biases of the author. Following each précis, respond to the following questions, then upload this
document and your annotated source texts to the submission site I’ll create for you each week.
How sound is this source and why? Response
What do you find strong or especially agree with based on your current understanding and
why? Response
What do you find weak, fallacious, or especially disagree with based on your current
understanding and why? Response
Has your thinking about your chosen topic changed as a result of this source and why/why
not? Response
Works Cited
For the purposes of this assignment only, Works Cited does not require its own page.
Type the correct template for this kind of entry from Purdue OWL handout here
Type the correct entry for your entry here, following the pattern of the template shown above.
3
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