Corrupting the Cyber-Commons: Social Media as a Tool of Autocratic Stability

Abstract

Non-democratic regimes have increasingly moved beyond merely suppressing online discourse, and are shifting toward proactively subverting and co-opting social media for their own purposes. Namely, social media is increasingly being used to undermine the opposition, to shape the contours of public discussion, and to cheaply gather information about falsified public preferences. Social media is thus becoming not merely an obstacle to autocratic rule but another potential tool of regime durability. I lay out four mechanisms that link social media co-optation to autocratic resilience: 1) counter-mobilization, 2) discourse framing, 3) preference divulgence, and 4) elite coordination. I then detail the recent use of these tactics in mixed and autocratic regimes, with a particular focus on Russia, China, and the Middle East. This rapid evolution of government social media strategies has critical consequences for the future of electoral democracy and state-society relations.

Communication power struggles on social media: A case study of the 2011–12 Russian protests

“…In fact, our results suggest that the pro-Putin camp was very successful in regaining control over a means of communication that initially seemed particularly favorable to the opposition. These results confirm recent, more critical analyses of social media in autocratic regimes, which show that autocratic governments have increasingly adopted strategies of proactively subverting and co-opting social media for pro-regime purposes (Gunitsky, 2015;Rød & Weidmann, 2015).…”

Overthrowing the dictator: a game-theoretic approach to revolutions and media

“…For instance, during the Arab spring several times they just shut Internet down for days. Regimes also actively monitor chats and forums and also develop fake websites to attract and identify potential opponents (see chapter 4 in Filiu 2011or Gunitsky 2015. In the light of our findings, the dictator's decision of controlling the Internet or limiting the access to information and hence hindering coordination may receive some theoretical support.…”

“…Passy (2003) claims that social media create social networks that are important in community creation, in connecting the prospective participants and also in the decision-making, since individuals use the information coming from the social network to anticipate and evaluate the potential costs and outcome of participation. Gunitsky (2015) and Battaglini (2017) highlight also the effects of social media in allowing individuals to communicate their information. Importantly, the decision to join the revolution depends also on the intentions and action of other participants.…”

Parsing the Effect of the Internet on Regime Support in China

“…Gunitsky (2015), for example, argues that using Internet-based strategies such as counter-mobilization, authoritarian regimes can transform the Internet "from an engine of protest to another potential mechanism of regime resilience" (p. 42). Using China as a critical case, we in this study have argued and shown otherwise.…”

“…Recent years have witnessed a heated debate among optimists and pessimists. While the former believe that the diffusion of the Internet and its associated new media is able to undermine authoritarian rule through democratizing public sphere (Howard and Hussain 2011;Diamond 2010;Shirky 2011), the latter, disappointed by the failure of the Internet to promote political changes in such countries as China, Singapore, Iran, Russia, and Cuba, contend that the Internet can serve as another instrument for the government and help consolidate the authoritarian regime (Lorentzen 2014;MacKinnon 2011;Gunitsky 2015). Despite their disagreements, both camps focus mainly on large-scale events such as protests (Farrell 2012;Tang and Huhe 2014).…”