When people say âsocial media is destroying our society,â they act like weâve never been here before. But we have. Exactly one hundred years ago, a new technology burst onto the scene, and within a decade, it had completely altered politics, democracy, and the way people understood reality. That technology was radio, and the Nazis immediately understood its potential to warp minds.
The parallels to todayâs social media crisis arenât just strikingâtheyâre terrifying.
The First Mass Medium of Intimacy
Before the 1920s, mass communication ran through newspapers, pamphlets, and journals. These had editors, fact-checkers, and some degree of accountability. But the radio was different. Suddenly, the most powerful voices in the world could beam directly into peopleâs living rooms. No mediation. No filter. Just a voice in your ear, in your home.
Joseph Goebbels, the Nazisâ propaganda minister, called radio the âeighth great power.â He wasnât exaggerating. The Nazis subsidized the Volksempfängerâthe âpeopleâs receiverââso that every household could afford one. Unlike American or British sets, which could tune across a wide band of stations, the Volksempfänger was deliberately limited. Its main function? Make sure the German public heard Nazi propaganda, and heard it constantly. They piped it through cities with speakers.
This wasnât just about speeches. Hitlerâs voice, broadcast at rallies, gave millions the feeling of being part of something larger than themselves. Music, sound effects, and tightly scripted programming turned the Nazi worldview into a lived experience. It bypassed reason and went straight for the gut.
Sound familiar? It should. Because this is exactly what social media does today.
Smartphones Are the New Volksempfänger
Today, everyone carries a propaganda pipeline in their pocket. Instead of Goebbels curating a national feed, algorithms do the jobâmaximizing outrage, polarization, and emotional resonance. Just like the Nazis, modern authoritarians understand the potential of the medium faster than their opponents.
Donald Trumpâs rise wasnât possible without Twitter. Steve Bannon famously described social media strategy as âflooding the zone with shit.â The goal is the same as it was in Weimar Germany: overwhelm people with emotion, repetition, and scapegoats until facts stop mattering.
The real power of the medium is intimacy. Just as the radio spoke directly into German homes, social media speaks directly into peopleâs feeds. When you scroll TikTok or Twitter, it feels personal, unmediated, real. That illusion of intimacy is what makes propaganda stick.
And letâs be clear: this isnât just a âboth sidesâ phenomenon. Yes, bad information circulates everywhere. But the people who exploit it bestâthe ones who weaponize itâare almost always the authoritarian movements. Just as the Nazis exploited radio better than any democratic party of their day, Trumpism and the MAGA movement exploit social media far more effectively than their opponents.
From Emotion to Radicalization
What makes both radio and social media so dangerous is the way they shift politics from rational discourse to emotional immersion. You donât just consume propagandaâyou feel it. You feel the rage, the grievance, the belonging.
Weimar Germany had a parliament, a free press, even elections. But once the Nazis saturated the culture with propaganda, those institutions couldnât compete. Citizens who had been immersed in years of Hitlerâs speeches and Nazi broadcasts werenât reachable by facts or debates. They had been reprogrammed.
Thatâs the danger we face today. Social media radicalization doesnât just persuade people; it rewires them. When every scroll reinforces fear, resentment, or conspiracy, the emotional lock becomes so strong that facts canât pry it open.
We see it in vaccine denial. In âStop the Steal.â In the idea that Democrats are plotting to mutilate children. None of this is grounded in reality, but reality isnât the point. Emotion is the point. And once people are immersed, they live in an alternate world.
Historyâs Warning
Itâs tempting to think of todayâs crisis as unprecedented. It isnât. The technology is new, but the script is old.
One hundred years ago, radio was supposed to be a force for education and unity. Instead, it became a tool for mass manipulation. Democracies underestimated the threat, while authoritarians weaponized it. The result was catastrophic.
Now, we stand at the same crossroads. Social media could be a force for connection and democracyâbut only if we stop pretending the problem is just âmean tweetsâ or âpeople being online too much.â The problem is systematic exploitation of a medium that is uniquely suited to propaganda.
And just like the 1930s, the people who exploit it fastest are not the defenders of democracy. They are the ones who want to destroy it.
The Lesson for Us
So what do we do?
The lesson isnât to abolish the medium. We didnât abolish radio. But we also canât keep letting social media operate as an unregulated propaganda machine. We need guardrails, accountability, and a recognition that information itself is a battlefield.
Most of all, we need to recognize propaganda for what it is. Stop treating it like âfree speech.â Stop shrugging when lies metastasize. Understand that history already taught us where this road leads.
Conclusion
A century ago, the Nazis taught the world what happens when propaganda takes over the airwaves. By the time people realized what was happening, it was too late.
This time, the stakes are even higherâbecause the propaganda doesnât just live on a box in the corner of the room. It lives in our hands, in our feeds, in our heads.
And if we donât act, history wonât just rhyme. It will repeat.
Wonderful and insightful commentary, many thanks.
The internet needs to be regulated. It can be and I canât imagine where itâs continued non regulation might bring us next. Terrific article.