Just going back to typewriters isn’t enough, says Matt Thorne
Democracy Hacked
by Martin Moore, Oneworld, 336pp, £16.99
On June 29, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI joined the social media micro-blogging site Twitter. For Martin Moore, author of new book, Democracy Hacked: Political Turmoil and Information Warfare in the Digital Age, this was a significant moment, the point at which social media could claim, in his words, that it was channelling “the word of God”.
In spite of this, however, Moore is not convinced that Twitter is a good thing, believing that it has many negative qualities. The platform, he thinks, appeals to a certain type of person, interested in hard news and politics, and often strongly partisan. Those who want “a less gladiatorial space” gravitate to Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat instead.
