The role of the Internet in democracy, politics, and elections has developed and evolved significantly over recent decades. By the early 2000s, in some parts of the world, political parties and candidates had begun using simple webpages (Web 1.0) to provide information to a limited online audience that consisted of very few politically engaged electors. By 2017, the use of the Internet had become so prominent that U.S. President Donald Trump famously used Twitter, a public and interactive social medium (Web 2.0), to circumvent more traditional media channels.

The Internet as a cyberspace that facilitates user-generated content information exchange and electronic human interaction is often thought to be an ideal space in which democratic activity may occur. The Internet is a mass medium that facilitates computer-mediated ...