<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article reads like a press release or a news article or is largely based on routine coverage or sensationalism . Please expand this article with properly sourced content to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, event notability guideline, or encyclopedic content policy . (June 2016) </Td> </Tr> <P> Social media's role in democratizing media participation, which proponents herald as ushering in a new era of participatory democracy, with all users able to contribute news and comments, may fall short of the ideals . Social media have been championed as allowing anyone with an Internet connection to become a content creator and empowering their users . But international survey data suggest online media audience members are largely passive consumers, while content creation is dominated by a small number of users who post comments and write new content . Others argue that the effect of social media will vary from one country to another, with domestic political structures playing a greater role than social media in determining how citizens express opinions about stories of current affairs involving the state . According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report in 2013, the percentage of online news users who blog about news issues ranges from 1--5% . Greater percentages use social media to comment on news, with participation ranging from 8% in Germany to 38% in Brazil . But online news users are most likely to just talk about online news with friends offline or use social media to share stories without creating content . </P> <P> People in the United States who have access to the internet are increasingly getting political news and information from social media platforms . A 2014 study showed that 48% of web users in the United States turn to Facebook to find political news in a typical week . The rapid propagation of information on social media, spread by word of mouth, can impact the perception of political figures quickly with information that may or may not be true . When political information is propagated in this manner on purpose, the spread of information on social media for political means can benefit campaigns . On the other hand, the word - of - mouth propagation of negative information concerning a political figure can be damaging . For example, the use of the social media platform Twitter by United States congressman Anthony Weiner to send inappropriate messages played a role in his resignation . </P> <P> Open forums online have led to some negative effects in the political sphere . Some politicians have made the mistake of using open forums to try to reach a broader audience and thus more potential voters . What they forgot to account for was that the forums would be open to everyone, including those in opposition . Having no control over the comments being posted, negative included, has been damaging for some with unfortunate oversight . Additionally, a constraint of social media as a tool for public political discourse is that if oppressive governments recognize the ability social media has to cause change, they shut it down . During the peak of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Internet and social media played a huge role in facilitating information . At that time, Hosni Mubarak was the president of Egypt and head the regime for almost 30 years . Mubarak was so threatened by the immense power that the Internet and social media gave the people that the government successfully shut down the Internet, using the Ramses Exchange, for a period of time in February 2011 . </P>

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