authoritarianism and social media
“Just as mosquitoes breed in a humid climate with lots of standing water, those who seek to foment chaos, mistrust, and fear as smokescreens for their corruption are flourishing in a communications era biased toward sensationalistic, emotional, and divisive content. As a consequence, we are seeing an explosion of social media–enabled disinformation 'influence' operations—some open, commercial, and seemingly above board, but many others serving an underworld of autocrats, despots, and unethical business executives.”