Is Your Online Bubble a Threat to Democracy?

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When we speak and associate with others in real life, the First Amendment governs interactions, granting broad rights of individual speech and association. Yet when we interact online, we submit to terms of service from private companies. The consequence is that private platforms have become the new governors of speech and association. As if that weren’t bad enough, the platforms’ proprietary algorithms determine which information we see, and allow targeting of particular users based on hyper-personalized data. In effect, the algorithms are dictating and defining our public sphere. In an online world already suffering from vitality over veracity, will this focus on our respective tribes exacerbate polarization even more? Will the predictable trolling keep getting worse?

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Is Your Online Bubble a Threat to Democracy?

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