Now that Congress has been on social media for a decade-and-a-half, it’s a good time to assess how that’s been working out for our democracy.
On that point, I should start with a confession. I worked at an organization, the Sunlight Foundation, that led an effort starting in 2008 – “Let Our Congress Tweet” – to allow Members, committees, support offices, and agencies onto that platform. I was just an observer of that campaign, but at the time the idea that technology could empower our democracy was widely shared by many in politics.
It’s hard for folks to remember the huge alignment between technology and the politics of that moment, embodied significantly in the zeitgeist of the nascent Obama administration. As but one example, Congress held a Congressional Facebook Hackathon in 2011, and the possibilities seemed virtually limitless.
At best, technology and social media was how we could transform our politics. The promise of getting elected officials on social media was to give citizens a front-row seat to democracy, foster direct access to legislators, and promote real-time engagement with policymaking as it happened.
It was a form of techno solutionism, but it was not necessarily wrong. Technology can help solve some problems and ameliorate others, but a lot depends on the technology, what’s built into it, who it serves, and who runs it. We didn’t have a good conceptualization at the time of the concept of platform decay, of what Cory Doctorow described in 2023 as the “enshittification” of the internet. The scatalogical description of the end result is not a necessary consequence of the use of technology, but a result of choices that can be changed.
Positive Consequences of Social Media in Congress
Let’s start by sketching out the promise of social media and how it connects with governance.
Social media can empower direct engagement with lawmakers.
Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have revolutionized the way constituents interact with their representatives in Congress. This direct line of communication, though not universally accessible due to various socio-economic factors, has democratized access to lawmakers to an extent previously impossible. At least in theory, it allows government to scale. Individuals can voice their concerns, share opinions, or simply stay informed about their representative’s actions and viewpoints in real-time.
And they do. The Pew Charitable Trust found in 2020 that “Congress produces a vast amount of social media content each month.” A 2018 CRS report discusses the widespread adoption of social media by members of Congress. Engagement is driven by a smaller subset of members across a wide variety of issues.
Social media empowers rapid dissemination of information.
One of the most significant benefits of social media in Congress is the ability for Members to disseminate information rapidly and directly, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers. This immediacy ensures that critical updates and legislative developments reach the public without delay or editorial bias.
In my own work, following reporters who cover Congress has been a lifeline to surfacing valuable, timely information empowering my ability to engage with Congress directly. It was a tweet by a reporter that let me know of House Republican efforts to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics, which allowed for a rapid and effective effort to save the independent ethics watchdog. I still maintain a list of journalists and academics on Twitter and Bluesky.
Social media can empower the disempowered.
The power of social media as a tool for societal change is significant. The “Arab Spring” was a political uprising in many countries against autocracy, although it was ultimately crushed. The Chinese government has built the Great Firewall because they are afraid of the power of the internet to empower people to work together. TikTok and Swifties empowered a political revolution in Guatemala, empowering anti-corruption candidates to win recent elections.
Negative Consequences of Social Media in Congress
As you’re reading the above examples, I can almost hear the screaming about the downsides, which by now are obvious to many of us.
Social media and the dissemination of lies
Social media platforms often lack rigorous fact-checking mechanisms, leading to the rapid dissemination of misinformation. This issue is compounded by social media algorithms, the design of which amplify outrage and where false narratives gain traction and credibility within insular groups. Traditional media are not immune from spreading misinformation, for what it’s worth. Look no further than Fox News’s Ruport Murdoch’s testimony where he admitted as such. [Note: I was a law clerk for Fox Television Stations, Inc. a long time ago.]
Social media and stochastic terrorism and foreign influence
Social media can serve as a platform for inciting violence against individuals, including Members of Congress. For example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was targeted by Rep. Gosar when he tweeted a doctored video depicting him murdering her. There have been a number of incidents where violence and threats of violence have been aimed at Members of Congress. The nature of this kind of incitement is that while they are not usually direct calls to violence, we know that unstable individuals are likely to take action as a consequence.
Similarly, there’s widespread reason to believe that China, Russian, Iran, and others are using social media to influence politics in a wide variety of countries. Before we clutch our pearls too much, it’s worth remembering that the US uses social media to influence domestic and foreign politics and there’s a very long history of manipulating the press to influence politics.
Social media and the media cycle
The agility of social media allows certain topics or agendas to dominate the media cycle, often crowding out other important news and discussions. This can lead to a skewed public perception of political priorities and realities. Some who watched the 2016 presidential campaign have the view that social media affected the election and how it was covered.
Social Media: A Continuation or a Departure from Historical Trends?
Social media’s impact on Congress is not unprecedented. Throughout history, new forms of communication have shifted power dynamics and influenced political narratives. It would require an essay of at equal length to this one to spell it out, so let me just gesticulate at the use of the franking privilege, creation and expansion of the post office, government funding of private printers, the telegraph, yellow journalism, radio and television, and cable news.
These were all powerful tools. Nineteenth century Congressional correspondents and the telegraph destabilized how the parties worked in the run-up to the Civil War. It was yellow journalism that got the US into the Spanish-American war. The anti-semitic diatribes of Father Caughlin on the radio pointed in authoritarian directions. And CNN and the “24 hours news cycle” had many real-world effects.
How is social media different? I’m not sure. But I have a few thoughts.
First, social media has a bespoke quality, tailoring its content to you as an individual in a way that is designed to be particularly engaging for you. The prior media were mass media, with a message tailored to larger audiences. The increasingly effective use of big data to learn about people at a micro level combined with the ability to shape their individual reality through real-time feedback is a hallmark of social media. Are social media companies choosing to radicalize people? Probably not, but algorithms chosen to drive engagement can have that effect. In fact, they can have the effect of elevating and suppressing all types of voices.
Second, social media companies can choose how responsible they want to be. If they realize that they’re pushing people towards a particular set of politics, should they take their finger off the scale? Should Facebook have a news feed, and if so, what goes on it? Should they take down misinformation? Why did Twitter have a Trust and Safety Council and why did they dissolve it? Do we want the government collaborating with these companies to decide what should be taken down, and if we do, what’s the downside?
Third, should we, through our agents in the government, control how discourse happens in these quasi-public spaces? Should just a handful of companies, run by a handful of people, be able to dominate these spaces, or should we use anti-trust and other regulatory tools to give consumers choices? Should we use consumer protection tools, like the FTC, to make sure these platforms are not harmful to consumers? Should we allow politicians to be on these platforms and should we impose controls over what they can say?
Addressing Regulation and Freedom of Speech in Congress
The regulation of social media within Congress presents a complex challenge. While social media communications by Members of Congress are considered public forums, the extent to which lawmakers can exclude disruptive or troll-like participants is currently under scrutiny by the Supreme Court. There should not be a heckler’s veto but neither should politicians be able to ignore comments that they disagree with for political reasons.
In addition, Members of Congress have historically had different rules for speech, balancing the need for open discourse with protections and limitations. Members can say just about anything in formal debate, but they must use an exaggerated form of politeness. Furthermore, they are protected from being prosecuted by the Executive branch in most circumstances for what they say in formal debate. When using official accounts to speak with the public, Members of Congress have fewer protections and have different limitations, such as on engaging in electioneering.
There’s also the issue of public access and transparency. Is a Member of Congress on Twitter, say, an endorsement of that platform? What about when that platform prevents people from being on it unless they’re willing to subscribe (and thus give up private information) or pay a fee? Is this different from a politician speaking to a newspaper? And do we want to force people to be on platforms that monetize their participation and use it as a vehicle to track many aspects of their daily lives? That kind of surveillance can be particularly pernicious and is a glide path towards autocracy.
Closing thoughts
Obviously, the social media genie cannot be put back into the bottle, and I feel sorry for making such a trivial point. Congress has the responsibility and power to define appropriate communications for its members on official platforms and to determine which platforms may be out of bounds. In doing so, it must navigate the evolving digital landscape, promoting open discourse and protecting democratic values and processes.
My suspicion is that the growing use of AI will start to alter the equation, but I’m not sure how. It may soon become possible for a Member of Congress to respond to every Facebook comment, to generate new social media content on multiple platforms with little time investment, and to respond to every individual inquiry in a timely and bespoke manner. Will that make their comments on the platform more valuable or less?
Social media has evolved into a mass media platform capable of being infinitely customized to prompt engagement by individuals for the benefit of those companies. The result does not have to be the enshittification of our democracy. Congress, in its role establishing policies for our society, can create a different framework for the companies that operate these platforms. But do they have the incentive to do so? Time will tell.
