Social media has become  a main source of news for many people since the early 2000s, with more than one-third of the global population currently connected online. Platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram allow for an ever-changing stream of user-generated content, filtered only by the platform’s terms and conditions. Furthermore, the algorithms used by social media platforms are designed to optimize user engagement through targeted advertising that promotes content that fits with a user's interests and preferences, creating a personalized news experience vulnerable to bias and misinformation. The capacity and tendency of social media platforms to spread misinformation has heightened political polarization in the digital age. 

The difficulty social media companies experience in containing the publishing of false or misleading information has created an ideal environment for false news to evolve, despite their efforts to limit it. For instance, the misinformation about political candidates that spread on Facebook leading up to the 2019 Brazilian Election exposed the extent to which the platform struggled  with combating manipulation through its services. The social media giant had not developed its own tools for detecting misinformation, and relied on third-party intervention for leads. This is because engagement is profitable, regardless of its possible detrimental effects, and as a result any form of information is uncategorically channelled throughout the platform, whereas publishers of traditional media act as gatekeepers, categorizing and rejecting news according to editorial standards. Misinformation is facilitated by the algorithmic design of social media, which presents users with personalized content and is characterized by sensationalized titles with equally attention-grabbing stories that lure vulnerable viewers with its illusionary credibility. Contrastingly, traditional news is typically produced by corroborative and professional authors and communicated presented at a much slower pace. 

Consequently, the spread of misinformation via social media has been shown to increase political polarization among its active users. Political polarization is also visible in Canada, however the Digital Democracy Project from McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy notes that Canadian polarization is driven by partisanship, whereas in the US it is driven by active engagement with the media. While political polarization is not a new phenomenon in the United States, political polarization is now being linked to  misinformation spread by social media. American politics often drives ideology elsewhere, including Canada, as it remains the world’s imperial hegemon. Canada and the United States share strong bilateral political and economic bonds, rendering Canada both materially and ideologically prone to American political influence. If this trend continues, polarization and the rise of the far-right —politics generally imbued with extremist nationalism, nativist ideologies, and authoritarian undertones—could lead to a fundamental undermining of liberal democratic structures of equality and human rights.

Furthermore, political polarization can also be exacerbated by certain instances of political discourse via social media. For example, President Donald Trump’s Twitter comments on sensitive political topics have incited users to take highly politicized stances on topical issues, which can spread fear-mongering and preclude the opportunity for nuance and critical analysis. Given the platform’s short 150-word limit, the President’s tweets oversimplify complex issues and can mislead voters by spreading misinformation and inflammatory opinions. A similar phenomenon stems from Youtube, whose algorithms have been called out for radicalizing users by recommending polarizing content creators on its home page. Therefore, reducing interpersonal political communication to social media while over-relying on these platforms for news can easily result in the spread of misinformation and increased polarization, due to the absence of objectivity and nuance in online political discourse. 

As a result, the social media experience greatly insulates users from a psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance, whereby an individual feels uneasy when faced with information that goes against their contradictory beliefs or values. Since people have a tendency to follow individuals with whom they share views, this solidifies their worldview by creating echo chambers, as social media platforms present relevant content to users through computerized algorithms that match specific and contentious ideas to users based on collected data. This phenomenon creates two extremes, where individuals receive strong and consistent reinforcement on their own social media feeds for their own views, making communication with different perspectives very difficult, but simultaneously reinforcing their trust in social media, creating a vicious cycle. Thus, political polarization results from feeding micro-targeted content to individuals and demonizing the other representatives of an issue. This problem is further escalated by misinformation, which infringes upon mutual understanding due to incoherent and unmatchable ideas, such as the highly contentious climate change debate.

Beyond the effects of viral political misinformation on user discourse, social media platforms have become crucial strategic sites for  electoral campaigns. For example, the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal involved the organization’s illegal collection of data about the profiles  of millions of American Facebook users, which was then used to generate customized and targeted political content for the campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Targeted content allowed false information to be accepted as legitimate by those who viewed them because it created an insulated space of single-sided portrayals of a given topic. While this incident is known to have been unethically manipulative, because it purposefully targeted individuals with election-related content based on their data, it has been cited as an example of the potential influence of social media platforms on real political outcomes.

Notably, the extent of American political polarization could also be attributed in part to its  bipartisan system. Partisanship is now a major defining factor of American society, as the country has two parties that are less willing to communicate and engage in fruitful discourse, which is a direct reflection of the polarization occurring through social media. Only 39% of Americans consider themselves centrist between the two party ideologies; a 10% drop since 1994. As social media becomes increasingly influential, how does a country continue to govern a population so divided  on important issues?  For instance, discussions of climate change policy in the United States have transformed into unproductive conversations of belief versus disbelief rather than the benefits of different policy options. Pseudoscientific information furthers this phenomenon by undermining the legitimacy of science—since 1974, Americans’ trust in science has decreased by 11%. As a portion of the population, influenced by their social media algorithms, buy into scientific denial, while the other half continues to abide by scientific evidence, political polarization is increasingly restricting policy platforms and policy options for political candidates and governments alike. 

Social media is a useful tool for political engagement and democratic debate.  However it has also become a factor in increasing social and political polarization, while the unchecked spread of misinformation has resulted in excessive distrust in the validity of science. The effects of misinformation spread by social media facilitated by existing algorithms are a danger to democracy, as seen with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Left unchecked, political polarization could delegitimize democratic institutions, a risk from which Canada is not exempt. The cure to political polarization is far from obvious, but promoting active listening to opposing perspectives is crucial to decrease the debilitating effects of social media and misinformation on social cohesion in liberal democracies.