Social Media Manipulation, Autonomy and Capabilities

Abstract

To understand why social media platforms’ potency as a tool for manipulation is inadequately apprehended through content-neutral, autonomy-focused analyses, this paper starts with an overview of the structural conditions that allowed such platforms to acquire their considerable regulatory power. Among these conditions, two elements stand out: the hidden -rather than non-deliberative- influence as well as its precise and comprehensive scope. While the hidden influence is what sets social media apart from other, non-manipulatory tools of influence, it is the comprehensive scope that exposes the limits of ‘value-neutral’ autonomy-based frameworks. When we are manipulated into acquiring a certain trait, there is normally enough left of us that is free of manipulatory influence to anchor some after-the-fact endorsement or alienation test. As an alternative to ‘value-neutral’ autonomy-based analyses, this paper analyses the harm that stems from such systematic manipulation through a capability account of autonomy. Of all the capabilities that are essential to what von Humboldt would call ‘self-realisation’, the capacity to imagine oneself as a different person is critical. It is also the capability that is most endangered by social media’s drive to optimise our online (and offline) environment to maximise user engagement.

Keywords: Manipulation, autonomy, capabilities, social media, regulatory power, alienation