THE END OF THE GATE KEEPERS / THE FINANCIAL TIMES OP EDITORIAL

The end of the gatekeepers

In the age of social media, the establishment no longer controls the narrative

John Burn-Murdoch

© FT montage/Getty Images

Ahead of local elections in the German city of Cologne later this month, mainstream political parties from the left to the centre-right signed a pledge not to campaign on negative social aspects of immigration, including unemployment and threats to security.

The agreement has been leapt upon by prominent figures on the global right including Elon Musk, who see it as evidence of the liberal establishment attempting to restrict democratic debate and downplay truths that are inconvenient for its world view. 

Even if they’re overstated, it’s hard to argue that these accusations are entirely without merit. 

But I don’t think this is the most interesting thing that we learn here.

One aspect of the story that has been glossed over in much commentary is that this was not a new pledge: it has been in place since 1998 in some form or another, with slight revisions before each election campaign. 

On the surface this makes the story less sensational. 

But take a step back and it tells us something more powerful: with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) currently polling at triple their tally in Cologne’s previous election and tied first in national polls, establishment attempts to set the terms of debate are no longer working.

There are many interlocking reasons for the march of populists in recent years, but one that is often either underplayed or misunderstood is the role of the internet and social media in dismantling these guardrails.

Evidence on echo-chambers remains mixed, and the role of misinformation is often overstated. 

But it is equally misguided to argue that there’s nothing new to see in this latest information revolution.

As noted by Brian Klaas, professor of global politics at University College London, the arrivals of the printing press, newspaper, radio and television all followed a common pattern: they expanded the audience who could access information, but that information was still produced by a relatively small, wealthy and homogeneous group. 

Social media, by contrast, has dramatically expanded the pool of people producing and broadcasting information, and in doing so the range of views and narratives people are exposed to.

My analysis of the ideological positions of those who share political content on social media shows that exactly this has happened. 

Whereas traditional media catered to a range of views, with moderate positions well-represented, extreme views — of both left and right — are heavily over-represented on social media.

This aligns with recent work by US researchers Claire Robertson, Kareena S del Rosario and Jay van Bavel among others. 

They find that social platforms’ inbuilt tendency to reward indignant and hostile content creates incentives that systematically reward the production of simplistic messages and extreme positions, while rendering moderate views less visible.

It’s not that this dynamic is new per se — Fox News has long piped hardline narratives into the homes of millions of Americans — but with social media we essentially have a plethora of fiercely anti-establishment and ruthlessly eyeball-chasing broadcasters, and they’re reaching much larger and broader swaths of the population.

This proliferation of views and narratives formerly considered beyond the pale, spread via individuals and platforms outside the control of erstwhile political and media powers, has shattered norms that previously kept radicals on the fringe. 

Gatekeeping doesn’t really work when the castle walls have been torn down.

This isn’t just conjecture: a 2019 study found that communities in Italy and Germany that received broadband internet access earlier than others also saw earlier upticks in support for populist parties. 

In his 2024 book The Normalization of the Radical Right, Vicente Valentim shows that support for many populist positions and politicians has long been higher than widely appreciated, and that the discovery that many others share these views — a process facilitated by the internet and social media — has led to them being voiced more confidently, and embodied at the ballot box.

Viewed in this light, the inexorable rise of the populists is not so much an upending of the natural democratic order as an unveiling of the electorate’s unfiltered inclinations. 

Free-speech absolutists would argue this is a positive development. 

From the perspective of economics, health and liberty more broadly defined, that is less clear.