Social Media Contributes to Radicalization. How to Prevent its Expansion?

Laburpena

Even though every society attempts to set its own criteria for identification, relationship andcoexistence, human beings have never lived in such a dispersed environment. Starting with thecontrol exerted by politics and religion throughout the Middle Ages, followed by the light shedby the Renaissance and up to the beginning of the Modern Society, decision-making lay in thehands of experienced and knowledgeable people of a certain age. Later on, in the 21st century,technology has disrupted the established standards and allowed citizens to take control ofinstitutions. This is already a radical change in political systems and, consequently, in societyitself. The advent and consolidation of “digitalization”, due to the importance of the Internet,social media and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI), have had an impact on the worrisomeradicalization processes experienced worldwide. This is because the Internet and, morespecifically, social media became a sort of new agora, or public space, where young peopleidentify with their peers –through doctrines and ideologies– and differentiate themselves fromothers. The social media has thus become the current space for social expression of diversity, aplace to recognize differences and to advocate for inclusion in all spheres of society. However,different factors, such as alleged anonymity, have turned the digital space into the perfectscenario to promote and disseminate stereo-types and prejudices, hate speech, radicalizationand violent extremism, among others. In this context, concern arises about the development ofAI without the necessary ethical values considering the potential of this technology to promotehatred, racism and discrimination. This paper argues that the Internet, social media and AI are,therefore, an important field of application and study as they are one of the main hubs wherehate speech is generated and disseminated, and analyzes how to curb these harmfulphenomena that, although not new, are actually being absorbed by digital technologies