Social media’s influence on voters is exaggerated

The argument

The claim is about how voters actually process what they see rather than about how much of it reaches them. Voters are not easily influenced by social media, because they do not encounter it as a neutral source. They are aware of the existence of disinformation on different platforms and are careful to consider this when reading pieces of fake news — which means the material arrives already discounted, and a claim treated as possibly false from the outset does not work on a reader the way a trusted one does. The second point separates two things that discussions of platform influence tend to run together. There is a clear distinction between where people receive their news, and where they get their opinions. The first is a matter of distribution, and is genuinely dominated by the platforms; the second is not, and no amount of evidence about the first establishes anything about the second. The example given shows how the two come apart in practice. They may use social media platforms such as Twitter to learn more about the election and the candidates' policies — a use that is informational rather than persuasive. Somebody reading a policy position on a platform is gathering material for a judgement they will make themselves, out of the priorities, interests and commitments they brought with them. Their opinions are formulated by themselves, and are therefore unlikely to be influenced by social media in the way the concern assumes. That bears directly on the question at issue, because a targeting operation aimed at disenfranchised voters in swing states depends on the targeted messages actually changing what their recipients think. If voters discount such material as they read it and form their views on other grounds, the targeting may be as precise as its operators like without producing the effect attributed to it.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Social media can be very misleading and must have an impact on voter decisions. Reports of the irrelevance of social media on election outcomes are outdated and exaggerated as the use of it to assimilate disinformation and foster voter suppression is a real problem.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Awareness of disinformation does not confer immunity to it. People are generally poor at identifying false content under normal reading conditions, and confidence in one's own resistance is among the better-documented reasons the effect works. [Rejecting P2] The split between where news is received and where opinions are formed is asserted without support and runs against how persuasion is usually understood. Repeated exposure shapes what seems salient, normal and widely believed, whether or not anyone consciously adopts a view they have read.