Culture wars and cancel culture: how the internet shaped politics | Marie Le Conte | New Statesman

From culture wars to cancel culture, Marie le Conte argues that social media sites such as Twitter have destroyed "politics 101."

Marie Le Conte argues that social media has influenced politics across many spectrums, for example, political campaigning has been changed as targeted messaging has been impossible to achieve - stating that in terms of election campaign messaging (citing the 2019 campaign between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson) that Twitter has destroyed "politics 101."

Many would argue that the reason our politics is becoming more and more divided and dominated by culture wars is due to social media platforms such as Twitter, directing people into Echo chambers, Le Cone on the other hand has the polar opposite view, arguing that "we’re all together in the same spaces all the time... that's actually not how politics is meant to work.”

Le Conte also argues this example applies to the Trans rights debate on Twitter, where as a "trans rights activist" she struggles to communicate to those who agree with her, without "gender critical" individuals seeing said conversations, "making the debate worse"

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Marie Le Conte is a freelance political journalist & author, whose most recent book Escape: How a generation shaped, destroyed, and survived the internet explores growing up alongside social media and the internet. As a former diary journalist, she has also written extensively on gossip in politics in the New Statesman and beyond.

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