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When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he promised to turn the platform into a »digital town square.« Freedom of expression was to be the ruling principle, political debates would proliferate, and voices would become more diverse.  Just three years later the opposite has happened. On the renamed platform »X,« far-right, reactionary contents flourish alongside conspiracy theories. Algorithms give them a boost while marginalizing or suppressing critical voices. What was advertised as the beginning of a freer, more open culture of discussion seems to have mutated into a digital landscape in which political opponents are deliberately shunted aside and dissent has been silenced.

Moreover, what is occurring on X is not an isolated case. On TikTok and Instagram too, the lines between a democratic public sphere, the logic of profit maximization, and political instrumentalization have started to blur. The promise of social media continues to sound enticing. Everyone can air their views. Every voice matters. Everyone has a chance to take part. A democratic culture of debate should mean that all who wish to participate in the discourse should have an equal and undistorted opportunity to do so, provided that they are willing to grant that same right to others as well.

 Social networks have destabilized the gatekeeping function of classical media. Where editors-in-chief once selected the stories to be featured, today, algorithms make those decisions. In theory, opportunities for participation have expanded in the absence of the media’s filtering role. People who scarcely would have gotten a hearing in the classical spaces of discourse now have found their voices: migrant communities, queer activists, those with disabilities or lacking academic training. In this respect social media look promising for expanding democracy. However, democracy is more than a cacophony of voices. It thrives on exchanges of opinion, differences, and deliberation. Here, a fundamental weakness of social media is exposed. The algorithms of these platforms reward attention rather than argument; emotion rather than insight; engagement rather than knowledge. In this way discursive spaces are emerging that have little to do with the democratic culture of debate.

  Users no longer meet in a common marketplace of opinions; instead, they join one another in fragmented, often ideologically homogeneous bubbles. Exchange of ideas across those boundaries is becoming a rarity. Misunderstandings of social media begin with its very structure. The term social media implies plurality, yet all too often those media merely reflect what users already think. Algorithms are designed to keep users engaged with the platform for as long as possible. That goal is frequently attained by prioritizing contents that evoke strong emotional reactions. That is the case because the primary purpose of private platforms is to enrich their owners.

»The formation of echo chambers makes exchanges of ideas with people who think differently more difficult.«

This dynamic encourages the formation of echo chambers in which users mostly are confronted by like-minded opinions. For that reason, exchanges of ideas with people who think differently become more difficult. The result is not only social compartmentalization, but also growing intolerance toward dissidents. The latter becomes especially problematic when radical narratives get entrenched inside the bubbles. Contents that engender outrage or fear, spread more quickly than those that invite us to grapple with other ideas. That has consequences for political discourse. For instance, when disinformation about elections., migration, or climate policy is deliberately disseminated and reinforced by algorithms, a public space arises that is largely insulated from facts.

It is especially worrisome that platforms like X, Instagram, and TikTok have increasingly weakened rules that at one time protected the integrity of discourse, at least on a rudimentary level. At Twitter, a large contingent of the team responsible for fact-checking and moderation was fired. TikTok is suspected of suppressing critical political contents. Meta has announced that it will put less emphasis on fact-checking in the future. The digital world is sliding further and further away from democratic standards. But in the absence of such standards, the shared basis for a discourse among equals on a level playing field looks likely to disappear.

The impact of this opinion economy is becoming clearly evident. In Germany right-wing populist and radical parties have been chalking up huge gains in their social networks. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party targets TikTok for its campaigns, benefits from its algorithmic visibility, and uses it to mobilize mainly younger users. Studies show that social media have become many viewers‹ primary sources of information – often without journalistic filtering. That has effects upon the political climate: polarization, radicalization, and loss of trust in institutions. If discourse continues to fragment, democratic culture threatens to erode.

What is especially dangerous is that the owners of the major platforms are beginning to misuse social networks for their own political agendas.  That trend came clearly to light during last year’s presidential election in the United States, in which Elon Musk systematically exploited his platform X to campaign for Donald Trump. In addition, a data analysis done by the Washington Post showed that, to an increasing degree, Republicans were going viral on X, whereas Democrats were barely getting any coverage. And the world’s richest man also tried to exert influence on European elections. He publicly called for the resignation of Chancellor Olaf Scholz; meanwhile, on his platform he praised the reactionary British politician, Nigel Farage.

The idea of a free, decentralized, self-organized internet proved unable to resist the reality of the platform economy. Today, a handful of firms control what we see, share, and believe. Those who run social networks have become the new gatekeepers, but now without any editorial responsibility and with their own economic interests at the forefront. Their power is neither democratically legitimate nor transparent. And their decisions have global political impacts. In the form of its new Digital Services Act, the EU has taken an important step forward. The law obliges major platforms to become more transparent, combat illegal content, and offer more options for reporting violations of its guidelines. Violations may be punished by the imposition of hefty fines. Like any other market, the products of social networks require rules and regulations to satisfy democratic standards and keep them from eroding over the long term.

»A militant public sphere needs social platforms beyond the reach of tech companies.«

In this context Germany and the EU should not rely on self-imposed commitments made by social media. Binding rules and enforceable sanctions are required as is a digital public sphere committed to participatory public debate rather than the logic of the market. But those reforms alone will not suffice. A militant public realm needs social platforms beyond the reach of tech companies. To enable mutual exchanges of ideas and encourage pluralist discourse we must not abandon social media to the whims of billionaires. To that end we should enact more regulations. In fact, some voices are now calling for the public ownership of private platforms.

Social media could become loci of enlightenment, diversity, and democratic disputation. They harbor the potential to broaden and open up discourse and render it more egalitarian. But at this point the dominant trend is toward polarization, disinformation, and algorithmic distortion that makes participation harder and postpones the free exchange of ideas to the distant future. The real gatekeepers are no longer editorial offices, but rather private firms that are, or believe themselves to be, unaccountable to the public. If we abandon this field to the tech moguls without any controls, we will slide inexorably toward a form of discourse in which arguments no longer matter. What will matter, almost exclusively, is simply who brings the most benefits to the billionaires.