In an email exchange, Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard, talked about how America needs to restore “serendipity” online and bring back the conditions necessary for a healthy democracy in the digital era. Sunstein argues that social media curation dramatically limits exposure to views and information that don’t align with already-established beliefs, which makes it harder and harder to find an essential component of democracy - common ground. In a new book, “#Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media,” Harvard Law School’s Cass R. Many people now operate in virtual gated communities as a result of their culled Facebook and Twitter feeds and the opaque corporate algorithms that organize people into invisible groups. Yet an unfortunate and largely unintended consequence of the rise of social media is that instead of being better informed and exposed to ever-broadening viewpoints, research shows that Americans today are more polarized and draw from shrinking pools of news. Technology would democratize access to information and remove barriers between people who wished to connect and share ideas, snatching power from a cluster of institutions that had controlled access, such as government and media, and giving it to anyone with a Wi-Fi connection. The internet once promised to be the great equalizer. Sunstein argues that social media curation of information reinforces established beliefs, making it more difficult to find common ground with political opponents.
Credit: Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer In his new book, “#Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media,” Law School Professor Cass R.
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