ABSTRACT
Digitized campaigning drew increasing amounts of attention in the early twenty-first century, and many saw it as inherently advancing democracy. Protecting democracy will largely depend on what citizens do to reject political lies, resist manufactured political hatred and insist that political discussion address real issues with a much higher degree of honesty, fairness and reliable evidence. Many scholars and activists who earlier had expressed faith that the Internet is a force for expanding democracy, both in existing democracies and in countries with non-democratic governments, were left wondering whether in fact the Net is a better tool for installing and maintaining authoritarian regimes. Since 2016, in the wake of the rise of right-wing authoritarian movements in the US, Europe and around the globe, some have to wonder whether digital politics is ushering in a new kind of totalitarianism. In the US they worked in support of the Donald Trump campaign, and in the UK for the campaign to exit the European Union.
