Just Enough Influence: On the Distribution of Political Influence on Social Media

Social media platforms currently amplify political speech—content aimed at persuading others to support candidates or policies—based on its likelihood to generate engagement. This means that users do not enjoy equal levels of reach or opportunity to influence others politically. What should platforms do about their potential to create or perpetuate inequalities in informal political influence? This paper develops a sufficientarian account, arguing that what justice requires is not equal opportunities for influence but sufficient opportunities for individuals to have their political views meaningfully considered by others. It contrasts this approach with egalitarian models, which aim to equalize informal political power, and show how these models face practical and normative difficulties—especially in attention-scarce digital environments. Egalitarian approaches can flatten legitimate differences in engagement and suppress meaningful expression. By contrast, a sufficientarian model, featuring algorithmic visibility thresholds and bridging mechanisms that publicly represent under-considered views, offers a more feasible and democratically defensible framework. In other words, what matters is that everyone has enough influence—even if it isn't strictly equal.

For more information, contact Dr Kyle van Oosterum at k.oosterum@ucl.ac.uk.