The Internet as A Democratic Hellscape

Abstract

This paper applies John Locke’s political philosophy to analyze the 2018 Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, highlighting the harms of spreading misinformation in the digital sphere. Locke’s Two Treatises of Government serves as a theoretical lens to explore how social media sites represent a facade of an impartial third party, when in reality they inflict harm upon the user by violating their liberty, and subsequently natural law as a whole. Using the Facebook-CambridgeAnalytica data scandal as a case study, this essay argues that social media sites knowingly allow the spread of misinformation, which ultimately harms users in realms that extend beyond the digital. This paper urges users to be aware of social media sites’ complacency in spreading misinformation and of the threats that misinformation poses to social and political life. The paper urges users of social media sites to play an active role in shaping digital spheres into spaces that can used to craft positive change in social and political life.

Keywords

• social media
• social contract
• democracy
• public sphere
• surveillance
• digital privacy