Applying Militant Democracy to Defend Against Social Media Harms

Social media inflict multiple harms on liberal democracy. Online platforms thrive on propagating emotionally inflammatory content that maximizes user engagement. Too often that entails amplifying disinformation, hate speech, online extremism, and deep-seated partisan animosity. Tellingly, as documented in testimony before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, in the weeks following the 2020 presidential election, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit knowingly enabled a firestorm of vitriolic far-right election denial on their platforms.

In so doing, a Select Committee staff report concludes, the platforms “helped to facilitate the attack on January 6th.”