Future Tense Disinformation, digital tech and democracy
Oct 30, 2025
Henry Farrell is a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, discussing how social media distorts group beliefs and shapes political behavior. John Tasioulas, a philosopher and ethicist from Oxford, warns about AI's potential to undermine democratic values, emphasizing the need for participatory governance in tech. Additionally, Marcus Beard introduces "slopaganda," highlighting how low-quality, AI-generated political content can fragment media consumption and threaten shared democratic discourse.
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Malformed Publics Shape Political Reality
- Social media distorts politics by creating publics with malformed collective understandings.
- Henry Farrell warns these collective misperceptions change how people act and what they think is possible.
Algorithms Amplify Unrepresentative Voices
- Social media scales niche, extreme voices into dominant signals through algorithms and group dynamics.
- Farrell says those who rise to the top are often atypical and skew public perception of normality.
Rebuild Local Social And Political Ties
- Rebuild smaller-scale social ties and reconnect people to politics to fix malformed publics.
- Henry Farrell recommends long-term, structural fixes like stronger local party links and civic engagement.