I’m a researcher of media manipulation, and watching the 2024 US election returns was like seeing the Titanic sink.

Every day leading up to 5 November, there were more and more outrageous claims being made in an attempt across social media to undermine election integrity: conspiracy theories focused on a tidal wave of immigrants plotting to undermine the right wing, allegations that there were millions of excess ballots circulating in California, and rumors that the voting machines were already corrupted by malicious algorithms.

All of the disinformation about corrupt vote counts turned out not to be necessary, as Donald Trump won the election decisively. But the election proved that disinformation is no longer the provenance of anonymous accounts amplified by bots to mimic human engagement, like it was in 2016. In 2024, lies travel further and faster across social media, which is now a battleground for narrative dominance. And now, the owners of the platforms circulating the most incendiary lies have direct access to the Oval Office.

We talk a lot about social media “platforms”. The word “platform” is interesting as it means both a stated political position and a technological communication system. Over the past decade, we have watched social media platforms warp public opinion by deciding what is seen and when users see it, as algorithms double as newsfeed and timeline editors. When tech CEOs encode their political beliefs into the design of platforms, it’s a form of technofascism, where technology is used for political suppression of speech and to repress the organization of resistance to the state or capitalism.

Content moderation at these platforms now reflects the principles of the CEO and what that person believes is in the public’s interest. The political opinions of tech’s overlords, like Musk and Zuckerberg, are now directly embedded in their algorithms.

For example, Meta has limited the circulation of critical discussions about political power, reportedly even downranking posts that use the word “vote” on Instagram. Meta’s Twitter clone, Threads, suspended journalists for reporting on Trump’s former chief of staff describing Trump’s admiration of Hitler. Threads built in a politics filter........

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