Our social networks The platforms and the government have had four years to get it right. Instead, they have given up.
In the days after January 6, Meta, Twitter, YouTube and Twitch suspended former President Donald Trump for posts that the companies said glorified violence at the Capitol. It was the most extreme restraint decision these companies have ever made. The platforms also took radical steps to remove thousands of accounts belonging to militias, conspiracy theorists and the content they shared that led the United States to that moment.
But that didn’t last long.
Is Not your average political newsletter. Makena Kelly and the WIRED Politics team help you understand how the Internet is shaping our political reality.
After the 2022 midterm elections, the balance of power shifted in Congress. Republicans now had a majority (albeit a slim one) in the House of Representatives and used that shred of power to go after the researchers and trust and security workers who did the dizzying work of debunking election myths. Jim Jordan was promoted to chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and immediately launched investigations that stifled the work of academics, at best, and launched harassment campaigns against entire moderation teams, at worst. As a result of these attacks, the Stanford Internet Observatory, a leading disinformation research group, close permanently during the summer.
Now, much of the social media infrastructure built to protect our democratic systems in the months and days after the deadly riots has collapsed, whether through inattention or force. There are only five days left until Election Day and a chasm has formed in the few remaining foundations.
To start with what we all know: Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into X, a conspiracy wasteland where professional purveyors of disinformation make thousands of dollars selling lies. Musk restored the accounts of Alex Jones and Andrew Tate, which were banned years before the 2020 election cycle began. And, to bring us to today, Musk has spent the last few weeks campaigning for Trump and spreading election lies.
These fissures in the platforms have occurred in all areas. Last year, Alphabet, Meta, and Meta has not only turned a blind eye to the militias at the moment By organizing on its platforms, it is self-generating groups related to militias.
