Dr Vergne’s paper explores how claims of social media harming democracy are often misdirected towards the divisive views made on platforms themselves. Instead, he shows that the greater risk comes from a lack of competition and the growing dominance of a few siloed platforms.
Declining political trust, rising inequality and the narrowing of mainstream political choices have shaped voter dissatisfaction for decades, according to Dr Vergne. Rather than fuelling democratic decay, social media document frustrations that were already building.
Separately from political democracy, social media platforms have also provided new spaces where democratic practices can flourish, particularly within organisations. The rise of decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) —digital organisations managed decentrally by voluntary contributors— allows members on platforms such as Discord, Reddit and Telegram to vote on decisions and collectively shape organisational direction.
For millions of people in non-democratic countries, these online communities offer a chance to participate in a democratic process, which Dr Vergne sees as evidence of social media fostering a space that renews organisational democracy despite the decline of political democratic systems.
The paper does warn, however, that all social media platforms face an unavoidable design trade-off. No single service is able to simultaneously offer free speech, free usage and safe usage, identified by Dr Vergne as the social media ‘trilemma’. Algorithms designed to remove harmful content, for instance, will inevitably restrict some speech. Platforms that rely on advertising to remain free to use must gather data and promote engagement, often at the expense of user wellbeing. Services that allow complete freedom of expression tend to struggle with misinformation or targeted harassment.
Vergne argues that policymakers have been trying to fix this at the level of individual platforms when the solution actually lies at the industry level. The way forward, he suggests, is to enforce an interoperablity standard (similar to the standard that allows email services like Gmail and Outlook to communicate with one another).
Interoperability, he explains, would allow users to post and communicate across platforms of their choosing rather than being locked into any single service. This would reduce the power of a few dominant platforms, promote healthy competition, and encourage innovation. It would also give users meaningful choice over the type of online environment they want, whether that is a tightly curated space with strong safety controls or an open environment prioritising free expression.
Speaking about the paper Dr Vergne said:
“The conversation needs to shift from fact-checking policy to platform design. Because the fundamental problem today is not that fact-checking is lacking or insufficient, but that people no longer trust the fact checkers.”
Social media is not inherently at odds with democratic values but it is threatened by a handful of platform corporations. Dr Vergne’s paper proposes that by embracing interoperability, social media can be made genuinely social again, reconnecting communities across platform boundaries and strengthening democracy by making the industry more open.
