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Social Media vs. Democracy: Evidence from the January 6th Insurrection

Author

Listed:
  • Karsten Müller
  • Carlo Rasmus Schwarz
  • Zekai Shen

Abstract

Social media platforms are often credited with empowering grassroots movements in the pursuit of political freedoms. In this paper, we show how social media can also be exploited by political elites to undermine democratic institutions, using the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection as a case study. We present three main findings. First, by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in Twitter usage, we document that social media exposure predicts participation in the Capitol attack, donations for anti-democratic causes, beliefs in election fraud, and support for the January 6th rioters. Second, Donald Trump's tweets questioning the election's integrity were followed by spikes in "Stop the Steal" activity on Twitter and pro-Trump donations originating from high Twitter usage counties. Third, the insurrection and Trump's account deletion were followed by a decrease in the public expression of toxic political and "Stop the Steal" messaging by pro-Trump users on Twitter, but had little effect on privately held beliefs about the election outcome and pro-Trump donations.

Suggested Citation

  • Karsten Müller & Carlo Rasmus Schwarz & Zekai Shen, 2026. "Social Media vs. Democracy: Evidence from the January 6th Insurrection," CESifo Working Paper Series 12485, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12485
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    JEL classification:

    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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