Hannah Katz

A Political Extremism Factory: How Social Media is Producing Political Polarization

The rise of social media has come with many benefits. It has allowed easier communication and the creation of community among people that otherwise may not have had it. It gives voices and platforms to everyday people and grants the average person access to virtually endless amounts of information to educate themselves on. However, as social media continues to grow and become an integral part of many people’s everyday lives we have seen the downsides. We have seen what happens when those communities that social media has created grow toxic and dangerous, and what happens when the “information” being spread is harmful and untrue. These things are especially true when it comes to politics on social media. The rapid spread of political misinformation and disinformation, assisted by social media algorithms, and the creation of echo chambers consisting of extremist ideologies has led to a significant increase in political polarization. Social media is turning average voters into political extremists, and it is having real world repercussions. There has been an increase in political attacks, most of which were at least partially assisted by social media, and it is becoming more clear than ever that social media is contributing to a more violent political landscape with its promotion of extremists' ideologies.