As I am writing this, we are closing on the second week of the second Trump presidency. While some of the rhetoric and administrative actions are reminiscent of 2017, the information landscape in 2025 has completely changed.

The second Trump administration is characterized by social media. The campaign effectively reached out to a younger male audience by leveraging social media platforms like TikTok, and the CEOs of these platforms stood in front of Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks at his inauguration.

Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and Shou Zi Chew are not only some of the wealthiest chief executives on the planet, but also represent a lion’s share of the attention economy. They are highly visible figures in the public consciousness, often with celebrity status, and their companies control some of the most powerful social algorithms. Additionally, these companies can ostensibly control the information that is pushed across user feeds, which makes it exceedingly concerning that they are very publicly siding with a controversial, neo-fascist political figure.

Twitter Exodus

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he significantly restructured the website in order to explicitly promote the perspectives of those that paid into the website’s then-named “Twitter Blue” subscription. While loudly espousing “free speech,” Musk often deplatformed accounts that criticized him. Musk was already an increasingly controversial political figure, and his purchase of Twitter led individuals that shared his political values to buy into Twitter Blue. Eventually, the website’s content overwhelmingly represented right-wing and far-right political beliefs; in 2024, this toxicity led to a mass-exodus to two competing social media platforms: Meta’s Threads and Bluesky.

The platforms that Americans use to communicate with one another, share perspectives and ideas, and learn information are now monopolized by unimaginably wealthy individuals, some of which have very publicly endorsed fascism. The degree to which these individuals have an ability to exert influence over algorithmic feeds is unknown, but Americans that disagree with their political beliefs have exiled themselves from these toxic information environments to platforms like Bluesky that allow users to exert more control over the content they do or do not see. These user decisions have been criticized by right-wing and centrist commentators because of the resulting political echo chambers on these alternative platforms; however, these echo chambers already exist on the platforms these users are moving away from, typically enforced by content algorithms.

Algorithmic Echo Chambers

If you’re left-wing, when was the last time you saw a TPUSA video of Charlie Kirk “owning the libs?” If you fashion yourself as a conservative, when was the last time you saw leftist political commentator Hasan Piker on your “For You Page” on TikTok? Our digital experience is curated by the invisible hand of the algorithm, which, as complex and mysterious as it seems, has only one objective: keep you engaged with the content for as long as it can.

An echo chamber is comfortable. It makes for a relatively conflict-free digital environment, and silos the user off from content that could become potentially harmful to their mental and emotional well-being. Echo chambers are often good for business, and can lead to a much more satisfying (and much longer) scrolling session, so they are frequently enforced by these content algorithms. However, it is precisely this comfort that engenders division; if you feel like everyone around you agrees with the same things you do, the more it is reinforced that you have the only correct opinion, and that anyone that disagrees is an outlier and therefore incorrect. Throughout the 2010s, this comfortable division became embedded in our digital environments, and eventually bled into our political sphere during the 2016 election. Now, these tensions have escalated so far that the United States is undergoing what appears to be a fascist transformation, with these ideas incubated and popularized by right-wing and alt-right echo chambers.

So what do we do now?

Online political disagreements can range from civil to downright abusive. While in an ideal world we would all co-mingle and civilly debate our opinions, the existence of “trolls” and other disingenuous or abusive actors has made these exchanges potentially damaging to a user’s wellbeing. Despite the criticism given to platforms like Bluesky, this social media model allows users to choose the kinds of content they’d like to see. When you first download the app, it allows you to “train” your algorithm by liking and interacting with different posts on your Discover feed. You can also explore and pin as many specialty feeds as you want to your top bar; I’m a big space nerd and am an amateur film photographer, so I have feeds dedicated to Astronomy and Film Photography directly next to my Discover and Following feeds.

As concerns around algorithm manipulation spread, and as our political sphere becomes more authoritarian, moving towards this model of a customizable social media experience will allow us to retain control over the information we consume and the amount of attention we give it. However, this means that it will be on us to frequently question our own beliefs and choose to expose ourselves to conflicting perspectives.

We absolutely must adopt a reflexive disposition that requires our attentiveness, patience, persistence, some cognitive discomfort, and a desire to inquire about the world and society around us. If we do not, it will be the cause of our own backslide into the authoritarian regimes of the 20th Century. And we have no assurances that the algorithms that currently control our time and attention will allow us to prevail against fascism once more.