PUBLISHED
August 17, 2025
Political opponents today, when they go to war, do not dive in with their guns blazing but with tweets and hashtags. Their followers pick up their line, and like a snowball, it gets bigger and bigger, and we witness the formation of extremely opinionated blocks where there is little-to-no room for what the opposing party has to say. That’s the polarisation we hear about now and then. To an extent, the polarisation reflected people’s awareness of their political realities and their engagement with them, but it has gotten to the extent of ideological extremes now. The political polarisation we are living through has also made its way to the online digital spaces, most commonly the social media.
This phenomenon may be centuries old, but Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), a quasi-government think tank, has studied it in a new light. In the book titled ‘Impact of Social Media on Political Polarisation in Pakistan’ which is a research study by Iqra Siddique, Faizan Riaz, Syed Hassan Ahmed and Noureen Akhtar discuss how when trying to study the impact of social media on political polarisation in Pakistan, the comparison between a tech giant and a socio-psychological incident seems quite vague. Polarisation was not something that could’ve been measured in kilos on a scale.
The research team from IPRI went about collecting responses from over a thousand social media users about their political perceptions, online behaviour, political polarisation and the impact of social media on their political ideologies. The respondents were not illiterate people scrolling through video content without commenting, sharing or liking, but the average university-going students who had basic knowledge of social media.
Respondents shared some interesting details about their social media behaviour and how it influences their online and offline interactions. Close to 70 percent of respondents agreed that they used social media frequently and that they ensured the authenticity of a post before sharing it. We do expect this degree of responsibility from university-going individuals that they make sure they are not disseminating some false information; however, sometimes it just becomes hard to sieve truth from lies, especially on social media. The respondents did not place much faith in the credibility of news circulating on social media, but almost 80 percent of them rated Twitter as a reliable platform for political insights.
It is interesting to note that not many respondents believed that social media impacts offline relations, but they did agree that it does shape and influence their political views. These respondents also agreed that their political beliefs changed significantly over the past 5 years. They also agreed that during the same time, polarisation increased in Pakistan’s polity, and some 62 percent agreed that social media has made politics more polarised.
The study finds out that X has the most positive and impactful correlation with political polarisation, although tikok also shares a significant correlation, the direction is negative. This means that tiktok is not polarising while twitter is. The possible reasons for this are direct engagement of politicians and leaders with their followers on X, while TikTok is not considered as credible for political insights, besides, TikTok is primarily an entertainment app, which dilutes its polarising impact. Interestingly, YouTube and Facebook did not come out to be as polarising as per the findings of this study.
While the majority of the respondents thought that social media has caused polarisation, the experts believed that social media reflects the divide that exists in the actual political sphere. Social media only gives virality to issues at hand and acts as a catalyst instead of creating the divide. The massive dissemination, unaccountability, coupled with anonymity, is what encourages people on social media to go wild with their opinions. The experts identified a lack of media literacy, echo chambers, and real-life political incidents as the key drivers of polarisation on social media.
Have you ever wondered why, when you are looking for shoes to buy, you suddenly start to encounter shoe ads on your social media? That’s because the social media companies are keeping track of your preferences based on your previous activities to keep showing you content that you like, so that you remain engaged and continue using the app. This is what we name as echo chambers, the app tries its best to keep you in your favourite bubble where you are shown posts about your favourite political candidate, the elections in your constituency, the presser by ISPR because you previously engaged with relevant content, now the app knows what you look for online.
Users often believe they’re exposed to diverse viewpoints. In reality, echo chambers filter content to show only what aligns with their existing views. The respondents for this research did not believe that their political ideology was superior to that of others that people from opposing political parties may also have good intentions, but they disagreed quite emphatically that information coming from other political parties on social media may be accurate. This in itself hints at the polarisation we have been talking about.
As echo chambers are inherent to the working of social media, they cannot be entirely gotten rid of; instead, social media companies may be held responsible for reprogramming their echo chambers so that content related to real-life issues like mental health problems, education, and development gets more traction. Instead of giving more visibility to divisive content that is generating a lot of online activity, companies may flag potentially fake posts. This may further be enhanced by incorporating AI tools for fact-checking or employing independent fact-checking organisations.
The users may also be notified of fake content that they previously interacted with once the fact-checkers have established its credibility. Strengthening libel laws is not enough till people attain enough media literacy through courses in curricula or training. If political parties agree on a code of conduct and their spokesperson are trained to take a more moderate stance online, polarisation would mellow down naturally. Social media companies may award badges and access to enhanced features to those users who engage in positive discussions online. The battlefield of polarisation isn’t the street, it’s the scroll; social media can be polarising or non-polarising depending on how we use it.
Iqra Siddique is an assistant research associate and co-author of the study, “Impact of Social Media on Political Polarisation of Pakistan.”
All facts and information is the sole responsibility of the writer.
