by Prof. Pedro Blas González, America Outloud:

The Internet, social media, and the massive proliferation of digital media were all billed as vehicles of transparency and the expansion of democracy and democratic values throughout the world. The Internet, social media, and digital media, we were told, would make the world smaller while making people ‘connected.
Instead, circa 2023, these forms of technology have been usurped by leftism – in its many illiberal, anti-democratic forms – and converted into tools of radicalization, indoctrination, and disinformation, manipulated by elite despots and totalitarians that corrupt and aim to ‘de-construct’ middle class values. Facebook, Google, YouTube, and TikTok are blatant examples of social and political control and groupthink. This has made the ruling elites richer while benefitting the denizens of illiberal radicalization.