Algorithms, Manipulation, and Democracy

Thomas Christiano

doi:10.1017/can.2021.29

Abstract

AbstractAlgorithmic communications pose several challenges to democracy. The three phenomena of filtering, hypernudging, and microtargeting can have the effect of polarizing an electorate and thus undermine the deliberative potential of a democratic society. Algorithms can spread fake news throughout the society, undermining the epistemic potential that broad participation in democracy is meant to offer. They can pose a threat to political equality in that some people may have the means to make use of algorithmic communications and the sophistication to be immune from attempts at manipulation, while other people are vulnerable to manipulation by those who use these means. My concern here is with the danger that algorithmic communications can pose to political equality, which arises because most citizens must make decisions about what and who to support in democratic politics with only a sparse budget of time, money, and energy. Algorithmic communications such as hypernudging and microtargeting can be a threat to democratic participation when persons are operating in environments that do not conduce to political sophistication. This constitutes a deepening of political inequality. The political sophistication necessary to counter this vulnerability is rooted for many in economic life and it can and ought to be enhanced by changing the terms of economic life.

Highlights

Notes on manipulationI will start with the idea of manipulation of opinion and discuss the core problem of manipulation in the context of democracy
Algorithmic communications pose a number of challenges to democracy
Algorithms can spread fake news throughout society, undermining the epistemic potential that broad participation in democracy is meant to offer. They can pose a threat to political equality in that some people may have the means to make use of algorithmic communications and the sophistication to be immune from attempts at manipulation while other people are vulnerable to manipulation by those who use these means

Summary

Notes on manipulation

I will start with the idea of manipulation of opinion and discuss the core problem of manipulation in the context of democracy. One prominent notion of manipulation is that manipulation involves influencing a person in a way that does not sufficiently engage that person’s rational abilities (Sunstein 2016, 82). This is an interesting idea, but it does not strike me as compelling because it seems clear that people often engage in all kinds of bad forms of reasoning while thinking that the reasoning is not bad. Objective wrongful manipulation takes place when one person or group sets in motion processes of influencing people’s minds that take advantage of flaws in the recipients’ rational capacities. It is a problem if it occurs systematically in a society in that it sets back the deliberative potential of a democratic society and damages the epistemic value of democratic processes, but I do not think that it is a threat to political equality. And it is this latter threat that I want to focus on in this paper

Algorithmic manipulation

Democracy and manipulation

Simple model

Democracy and epistemic inequality

Conclusion