Title: To Protect Democracy, the U.S. Government Must Regulate Social Media Companies and Make Election Interference Illegal
Headings: To Protect Democracy, Protect the Internet
Argument
To Protect Democracy, Protect the Internet
The voluntary efforts of tech companies aren’t enough. The U.S. government needs to regulate social media platforms and make election interference illegal.

Content: Even ineffective foreign interference can undermine the legitimacy of an electoral outcome. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia​ ordered ​ an influence campaign including both targeted leaks of political material and propaganda delivered via social media. Russian actors​ hacked ​ into U.S. political leaders’ email servers and leaked their content via the websites WikiLeaks and DCLeaks. Russia also launched a massive propaganda campaign, in which 80 or so contractors at the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) ​ created ​ fake social media accounts purporting to be Americans in order to spread divisive content. This campaign, which continued after Election Day, reached at least 126 million Americans on​ ​ Facebook ​, 20 million on​ ​ Instagram, and 1.4 million on​ ​ Twitter ​.
Despite these numbers, there is no compelling evidence that Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election​ determined ​ the outcome of the race. That’s because they had an even more subversive intent. As the U.S. intelligence community​ ​ concluded ​ in its 2017 report “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections,” Moscow’s objective was “to undermine public faith in the US democratic process.” Rather than focusing on the immensely challenging task of changing votes in swing states or​ ​ voter suppression ​, Russian operatives sought to stoke​ existing racial resentment ​ and​ ​ partisan polarization. Their ongoing efforts are likely one of many factors contributing to Americans’​ ​ increasing dissatisfaction with their democracy. Russian leaders seem to think that they benefit from press coverage that promulgates the idea they can change the outcome of foreign elections.