Obama says social media is ‘well designed’ to destroy democracies

After an era of open affection for Silicon Valley and relative quiet, former President Barack Obama is getting serious about tech.

The former president spoke Thursday at an event co-hosted by the Cyber Policy Center and the Obama Foundation, and this time he didn't mince words about the toll that social media companies have taken on the social order.

The current moment in history is marked by broad concerns about social platforms with Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the country's bloody invasion of Ukraine.

People like Putin and Steve Bannon understand that misinformation is not necessary to weaken democratic institutions. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, and plan enough conspiracy to make the citizens not know what to think.

Disinformation is a threat to our democracy, and will continue to be unless we work together to address it. Tune in as I share some thoughts on what we can all do now. https://t.co/6R6n3MOPPR

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 21, 2022

As Putin discovered leading up to the 2016 election, our own social media platforms are well designed to support such a mission. We are seeing the results.

While we are reaping what social media companies have sown, it may not be too late to make different choices.

Some of the problems we are seeing are not the result of this new technology. They are the result of very specific choices made by the companies that have come to dominate the internet and social media.

Obama framed misinformation, harassment and other issues that plague social networks as the result of platforms designed with all the wrong incentives in place.

The Digital Markets Act is one of the European regulatory initiatives that the former president pointed to as a path forward. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that protects platforms from liability for user-generated content, was mentioned by name. The legislation requires social platforms to open up their data to outside researchers.

Obama's speech at Stanford was a concise and thoughtful summary of the ways in which social media is affecting society, but it is unlikely to make a difference. Obama's commonsense, non-partisan ideas about how to transform tech will likely still prove divisive, particularly among the crowd that spread racist conspiracy theories about the former president.

The political figure who presided over the rise of Big Tech seems to be concerned about the threat that online misinformation poses to democratic society. Even if anyone will hear Obama's insights, the information landscape is still worth discussing.

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