The Founding Fathers vs. social media

When people think about the challenge that Facebook and Twitter pose to our democracy, they don't often think about James Madison and the Federalist Papers. But perhaps they should, argues constitutional scholar Jeff Rosen. Rosen pointed to Madison's writings in No. 55 of the Federalist Papers in arguing against direct democracy. "In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob," Madison wrote. One of the ways that social media challenges the founders' vision, Rosen says, is by enabling politicians to harden their positions before they even have a chance to hear the other side. Rosen says that the filter bubbles of social media are exacerbating the fact that Americans are already pretty divided along geographic lines.