The gap between citizens and political representatives constitutes the main cause of declining trust and confidence in democratic institutions. This leads to wider political disengagement, whereby many people do not value or participate in democratic processes and even express apathy regarding the country’s political direction.[1] It has been suggested that technology may aid in bridging this gap between political representatives and citizens, allowing for the emergence of a Digital Democracy. Digital Democracy covers a range of meanings but typically refers to the use of digital tools to promote information transparency, increase public involvement in democratic processes, and even allow citizens to make decisions directly through the use of digital tools.[2] Some techno-optimists have even argued that this has the potential for a democratic revival. Sceptics, however, warn that this access to greater information – and the ability to make one’s opinion known on social media – has contributed to further polarisation, radicalisation, and post-truth politics. As Lydia Khalil summarises this shift: “The internet was once considered an open door to democracy and liberty. Today, it is seen as an agent of democratic erosion.”[3]  For digital democracy to thrive in the UK, policymakers need to pay attention to information and find ways to enhance legitimacy and trust in digital spaces.

The State of Digital Democracy in the UK

In 2015, the UK parliament set out ambitions for revolutionising and rejuvenating UK democracy through the implementation of technology.[4] This ambition highlighted the power of technology to improve the public’s understanding of politics and parliament, reaching out to underrepresented groups and widening participation in political decision-making. Technology is taken here as a vital tool for strengthening democracy. This vision was reflected in the UK Government’s Digital Strategy of 2022, with the ambition to create a strong digital economy that can enable people to better interact with politics and the democratic process. And in March of 2024, the Conservative Government released the “Digital development strategy 2024 to 2030”, which further highlighted the importance of utilising digital solutions “that support fundamental freedoms and democratic values.”[5] 

More concretely, the power of digital participation can be divided into three functions, which imply the utilisation of different tools: monitoring, agenda setting, and decision-making. In terms of monitoring, citizens can, through digital means, monitor, question, and advise political representatives. Citizens may also employ “e-petitions” to influence the setting of political agendas and priorities. In 2002, an e-petition feature was officially introduced on the Downing Street website, with the aim of giving citizens a more direct way to influence governmental initiatives and policies. According to current legislation, when 100,000 signatures have been reached, a proposal will be debated in the House of Commons. Since the introduction of this initiative, 36,000 proposals have been submitted.

Citizens may also participate in political decision-making through crowdsourcing for law proposals and policy-making, internet consultations by political parties, and e-voting. In the United Kingdom, TheyWorkForYou (theyworkforyou.com) enables citizens (over the age of 12) to monitor the activities of the House of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, and the Northern Ireland Assembly. It provides information on individual Members of Parliament, including the number of written questions and participation in debates, and appearances and expenses.

According to the Fabian Society, “all reasonable indicators point firmly towards digital democracy,” yielding a positive impact on political participation and engagement.[6] This view was echoed in a 2021 study by Hanne M. Stegeman, which found that the online sphere provides new ways for emerging adults to “rebel against the status quo” of ordinary politics and “express themselves politically”[7], protest policies, form groups, and even control policies put forward by governments.[8] If done right, “Digital democracy can support the realisation of democratisation in a country”.[9]

The Challenge of Disinformation

An emerging challenge to the realisation of digital democracy is mis- and disinformation, and how false information is taken up and spread across virtual channels. Although they are frequently conflated, misinformation connotes the idea of false information that is spread regardless of intent, whereas disinformation is false information that is spread deliberately to achieve some outcome.

The problem of disinformation was acutely felt during the COVID-19 pandemic when hoaxes and conspiracies spread quickly across social media platforms, undermining the trust in Governmental interventions and the scientific community.[10] The Brexit referendum was similarly plagued by disinformation campaigns, as shown by the number of automated accounts on X (then called Twitter) infecting political debates.[11]

According to a report by the V-Dem Institute[12], the devastating effects of disinformation on democracy manifest in several ways. It erodes trust in elections, and research has shown that electoral management bodies are the most frequent targets of disinformation campaigns. With false information spreading quickly during election cycles, it makes it difficult for people to evaluate a candidate’s actual performance accurately and take an informed stance on important issues. It also increases political polarisation by, for example, exacerbating divisions between “winners” and “losers”.[13] Social media has been shown to amplify the spread, reach, and impact of disinformation, and is considered a crucial factor for understanding trends towards polarisation. Social media differs from previous forms of mass communication and traditional media because it is interactive and constructed to sustain conversations, whether they are based on true information or not.[14] Why do people spread disinformation? A commonly proposed explanation for this phenomenon is that those with lower levels of digital media literacy (such as older adults) are less able to detect untruthful claims and estimate the reliability of different sources. People are also more likely, on average, to spread false information if it is consistent with pre-existing attitudes, regardless of whether the original source seems authoritative and trustworthy. Statistics show, overall, that the percentage of unintentional fake news spreaders is approximately five times higher than that of intentional spreaders, showing that the “lack of human awareness” remains a significant reason why disinformation flourishes online.[15]

Disinformation campaigns aimed at eroding trust in democratic processes are often exacerbated by social bots, an algorithm that automatically produces content and interacts with both human and non-human (i.e. other bots) accounts to serve some specific agenda. They do so by amplifying content to make it look legitimate and increase public exposure to it. It is clear that social media is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it is a powerful tool for participation and dialogue, but on the other hand, it is a significant source of false information and a cause of polarisation.

Policy Recommendations

• The Government needs to support the development of baseline digital skills across the UK. Without a sufficient level of digital skills, a number of people will (a) struggle to meaningfully participate in an age of digital democracy and (b) more easily fall prey to mis- and disinformation.
• UK education needs to teach students and young people how to spot disinformation. In Finland, children are taught media literacy, and the country has topped the Media Literacy Index since it was first introduced in 2017. In secondary schools, the ABC Book of Media Literacy is used to teach students how to identify image and video manipulations, half-truths, false profiles, and intimidation.[16] As a leader in the global educational landscape, Finland provides an inspiring example of how students can be equipped against anti-democratic disinformation campaigns.[17]
• While we support the 2023 introduction of the Online Safety Act, aimed at making social media companies more responsible for their content. The effectiveness of the act in combating mis- and disinformation remains unclear. As Lorna Woods and Alexandros Antoniou of the University of Exeter point out, for criminal disinformation, the duties under the Act would be triggered if it were possible to establish a “link between the actor spreading the disinformation and the foreign power”, and this remains a challenge.[18] When it comes to false information, it has to be shown that the person spreading such information understands the information to be false, and this is especially problematic if the false information is spreading virally.

References 

[1] Baston, L., and Ritchie, K. Turning Out or Turning Off: An Analysis of Political Disengagement and What Can Be Done About It. Electoral Reform (2017). Available at: Link 

[2] Simon, J. et al.  Digital Democracy: The Tools Transforming Political Engagement. Nesta (2017). Available at: Link

[3] Khalil, L. ‘Overcoming Digital Threats to Democracy’. Lowly Institute (2024). Available at: Link

[4] Digital Democracy Commission. Open Up! Report on the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy. UK Parliament (2015). Available at: Link

[5] Digital Development Strategy 2024-2030. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (2024). Available at: Link

[6] Chowdhury, A. ‘Bridging the Democratic Divide in the UK. Fabian Society (2016). Available at: Link

[7] Stegman, H.M. ‘The Matter of Online Political Participation: A New Materialist Experiment on Emerging Adult Participatory Practices in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands’. LSE Media and Communications (2021). Available at: Link

[8] Congge, U., Guillamón M-D, Nurmandi A., Salahudin and Sihidi, IT. Digital democracy: A systematic literature review. Frontiers in Political Science (2023). Available at: Link

[9] Ibid.

[10] Culture, Media, and Sport Committee. Trusted Voices. House of Commons (2024). Available at: Link

[11] See Bastos, M. ‘Social media “bots” used to boost political messages during Brexit referendum’. City University London. This research showed that more than 13 thousand probable Twitterbot accounts were active around the referendum, only to disappear quickly after the polling stations closed.

[12] Democracy Endangered by Online Disinformation. V-Dem Institute (2024). Available at: Link

[13] See Mauk, M, and Grömping, M. Online Disinformation Predicts Inaccurate Beliefs About Election Fairness Among Both Winners and Losers. Comparative Political Studies 57(2023). Available at: Link

[14] Post, R. ‘The Internet, Democracy, and Misinformation’. In Disinformation, Misinformation and Democracy, edited by Koltay, A. and Krotoszynski, R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2023).

[15] Aïmeur, E., Sabrine Amri, S., and Brassard, G. Fake news, disinformation and misinformation in social media: a review. Social Network Analysis and Mining (2023). Available at: Link

[16] Nash, A. ‘Media Literacy A to Z: How Finland is Arming Students Against Misinformation’. Print Mag (2024). Available at: Link

[17] Mackintosh, E. Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy. CNN (2019). Available at: Link

[18] Woods, L., and Antoniou, A. ‘Is the Online Safety Act “fit for purpose”’. LSE (2024). Available at: Link