Dark social – digital communication without publicity?

The term dark social media refers to personal digital communication services such as messenger services (e.g. WhatsApp, Telegram). With their help, content can be created, disseminated and received primarily in a private context, i.e. to the exclusion of the wider public. As the content is difficult for outsiders to view, it is primarily used for communication between acquaintances, for example to plan a joint event or exchange information. As a result, dark social media is creating new social groups as well as new forms of social and political participation, ranging from the general dissemination of information to informal voting.

However, it is also possible to disseminate content beyond the circle of people originally intended and make it accessible to a wider audience. This means that the supposedly private messages can potentially reach the public, making it almost impossible to control the content disseminated. During the COVID-19 pandemic, such services became increasingly important as they were used to disseminate both legitimate political information such as protective measures as well as conspiracy ideologies and extremist content. Well-known personalities used Telegram, for example, to make their anti-democratic views accessible to a supposedly private audience. As this content was also shared beyond the circle of actual users, it was picked up by traditional media reporting and publicised.

Comparability with analogue phenomena

Comparable analogue phenomena are private conversations or communication via postcards. In principle, these are also meant to be private and are often inaccessible to third parties. However, their content can also become public if the conversation takes place in a café in front of other guests, for example, or if the postcard is read during delivery. The significant difference lies in the digital specificity of dark social media: While analogue communication is limited to direct interactions, digital communication enables indirect, fast and wide dissemination of content and a dispersed and in principle unenclosed audience. This is supported by various enablers:

• simplified concealment: pseudonymous participation makes it difficult to recognise the person actually communicating.
• high speed due to the rapid dissemination of information

Generation and processing of large amounts of data: Digital platforms allow the storage and forwarding of large amounts of content, regardless of its quality, context of origin and truthfulness.

Social relevance

Dark social media is highly relevant to society as it fundamentally changes the way in which information is disseminated and discussed. In particular, dark social media expands the opportunity for digital participation, as it promotes low-threshold, often anonymous interactions and discussions. This happens regardless of the democratic relevance or danger of the content. They contribute both to positive networking (e.g. neighbourhood help) and to the spread of extremist content and content that threatens democracy. These services challenge traditional concepts of the public sphere and require both a new scientific categorisation and social reflection. This is also associated with new forms of media literacy, i.e. the individual’s ability to both use the services functionally and categorise the content accordingly.

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