From the site of revolution to repression: Wasn’t social media supposed to bring democracy?

This briefing explains how politics has gone digital, looks into the impact of the Arab Spring on social media & global affairs, and explores how social media companies have stopped taking responsibility for their platforms. This piece was written by Victoria Iamoni and edited by Tanvi Sureka.

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Introduction

It is impossible to imagine a world where global politics is not discussed online. Still, it is easy to forget that not that long ago, political debates unfolded in newspapers or through interviews over the radio. It is only now that politics unrolls in the endless scroll of social media feeds. Traditional forms of media have fallen behind, replaced by digital platforms that dominate how people consume and engage with news.

Behind this shift are the tech giants, with Meta at the forefront, the company controlling Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. In their ethos is a drive to create a new digital public square, one that connects billions of people across the world. While giving a speech at Georgetown University, Mark Zuckerberg famously claimed that Facebook would "give everyone a voice, empower the powerless, and push society to be better over time." And in the early 2000s, as the world moved online, politics followed. Social media didn't just replace how people got their news - it changed who could participate in contributing and shaping their political discourse. As of 2024, in the UK  71% of people now get their news from online sources, surpassing television for the first time. Social media is at the heart of this shift, with 52% of adults using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) as their primary news source.

The moment the world started to realise this change was in the early 2010s. The Arab Spring is the key symbol for this shift, with activists using social media to coordinate protests and push back against oppressive regimes. For example, in Egypt, social media was seen to mobilise “first movers”, allowing the first protests to get off the ground. Facebook was key for recruitment and planning, while Twitter meant the people could get live updates while at events. Suddenly, platforms like Facebook and Twitter weren’t just social networks—they were tools for revolution. Tech companies seized the moment, taking the opportunity to expand their user base and name recognition. Former associate editor for The Atlantic, Jared Keller, even wrote that “Journalists even gave the unrest in Tehran a second moniker: the 'Twitter Revolution'”.

But this self-mythologising served another purpose: hiding these platforms from scrutiny. In the 15 years since the Arab Spring, as these companies have expanded in size, power, and influence, their role in shaping political discourse has increasingly been questioned. Are they genuinely living up to their promise, or has the utopian vision of social media as a tool for democracy begun to unravel?

How politics went digital

It is often hard to grasp the sheer influence Meta has accumulated since its inception. Its origin story was even dramatised in the Aaron Sorkin film, The Social Network, illustrating how Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook as a Harvard-exclusive social platform in 2004. Initially, it was seen as a new way to start socialising. It rapidly expanded to universities, then to the public in 2006, positioning itself as the go-to platform for digital socialising. With its algorithm-driven News Feed, Facebook transformed passive browsing into an active engagement model, drawing users in. Throughout the 2010s, it continually grew, acquiring Instagram (2012) and WhatsApp (2014) to consolidate its market share. As of 2024, it has over 3 billion users. Meanwhile, Twitter, founded in 2006, gained traction as a microblogging site for real-time news and political discourse. As they expanded to encompass daily communications for billions, their impact on politics deepened, eventually enabling revolutions.

Take the Arab Spring. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube weren’t just platforms but the digital infrastructure of resistance. Protesters coordinated in real-time, exposing state violence to a global audience. In places where governments had a monopoly on traditional media, such as Egypt and Libya, state censorship and propaganda were suddenly being outmanoeuvred. Thanks to these apps, ordinary people armed with nothing but a phone and an internet connection could organise mass demonstrations. Social media campaigning played a crucial role, with Facebook groups such as We Are All Khaled Said “internationalizing the conflict on an unprecedented scale, forming international solidarity ties and global activist networks.” Social media didn’t create the repressive conditions needed for these revolutions, but it provided the means for people to communicate and fight to escape them. As Joud Walid writes, “online platforms allowed the world to see the horrors of authoritarianism in the Arab world.” For a moment, it seemed as though the old hierarchies of power could be permanently disrupted.

How social media companies stopped taking responsibility for their platforms

Instead, the same tools that once enabled decentralised, leaderless movements eventually became instruments of control. While the Arab Spring solidified the idea that digital platforms could challenge authoritarian regimes, it also foreshadowed the darker side of digital politics, as governments learned to manipulate the same platforms for surveillance, propaganda, and disinformation.

The shift from empowerment to control is starkly illustrated by Facebook’s role in the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. The military systematically weaponised the platform, using it as a tool to disseminate hate speech, incite violence, and dehumanise the Rohingya population. Internal reports later revealed that Facebook was fully aware of its role in exacerbating the crisis, yet chose not to intervene. Reporting characterised the platform as an “absentee landlord”. To put the company's market dominance into perspective, this was a country where Facebook effectively was the internet. This meant that they both had the knowledge and the power to intervene. The company’s reluctance to act, despite clear evidence of the horrific harm, marks a fundamental shift: its priorities were now to maintain plausible deniability. One does not want to be found legally complicit in a genocide. This seemed to be the first significant crack in public perception of what was seen as a one tool of democratic resistance. It had now become a vehicle for orchestrating ethnic cleansing.

This erosion of responsibility has only intensified. Recently, platforms have begun dismantling the infrastructure that once distinguished them as spaces for informed discourse. In the aftermath of the 2024 election, Mark Zuckerberg announced a rollback of fact-checking mechanisms, already fragile in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meta’s decision to scale back its investment in fact-checking partnerships exemplifies this retreat from accountability. The corporations that once framed themselves as champions of free expression are now complicit in fostering environments where misinformation and state-backed propaganda flourish unchecked.

From hosting platforms to helping regimes

This rollback is neither accidental nor isolated. It coincides with the increasing alignment between social media companies and authoritarian regimes. By abandoning content moderation under the guise of neutrality, these platforms facilitate the consolidation of political power by regimes that thrive on suppressing dissent.

The symbiotic relationship between Big Tech and authoritarianism is becoming more explicit. Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former director of public policy and current whistleblower, had detailed Mark Zuckerberg’s courtship of China, wherein he explored the possibility of a censored version of Facebook tailored to state restrictions, epitomising the industry’s willingness to compromise on democratic principles for market access. Similarly, Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter into X has been accompanied by policy shifts that align with authoritarian interests, most notably, his concessions to Erdogan’s Turkish government, which restricted access to political opposition accounts while allowing state-backed propaganda to flourish.

Can we go back to the promised digital public space?

The transformation of social media from a vehicle of empowerment to an instrument of repression presents profound challenges. Efforts to regulate these platforms have encountered geopolitical obstacles, with governments reluctant to antagonise powerful tech companies or risk economic retaliation. The European Union has taken some steps, such as imposing fines under the Digital Markets Act, but these have been limited to avoid “escalating tensions with US President Donald Trump.”

Ultimately, the trajectory of social media will depend on a complex interplay of regulatory pressure, public scrutiny, and corporate strategy. While it remains challenging to curtail the influence of these platforms, it is sometimes worth remembering what they were once envisioned to be, what they still can be, and just how far they have drifted.