The Cobweb World and the Digital Public Sphere
International relations scholar John Burton’s Cobweb Theory argues that states are no longer the sole channels through which societies interact. Today, people engage globally through countless digital pathways that the state cannot fully control. In earlier times, international interactions passed almost entirely through state authorities, who had extensive survei-llance capacity.
But the internet shattered those barriers. A young person in India can now witness protests in Chile or police violence in the US not as distant events but as instantly relatable. What once appeared only in newspapers now unfolds in real time, with emotional intensity.
The global has become personal. On platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok, rising trends are no longer fully under state control, even though Governments everywhere are attempting to regulate them. But digital regulation cannot be imposed abruptly — it will come gradually, like a slow poison, to avoid backlash. Recent events in Nepal offer a vivid example. In September 2025, the Nepali Government banned dozens of social media platforms for failing to register with local authorities.
The decision triggered massive protests led primarily by Gen Z, forcing the Government to partly reverse its position. Critics saw it as an attempt to silence anti-corruption voices; others believed tech companies fueled resistance to protect their profits. Either way, the lesson for Governments is clear: sudden digital crackdowns are risky.
The Paradox of Blame and Dependence
The democratisation of online spaces also creates a paradox. States routinely warn citizens about data misuse and privacy breaches by tech giants. Big tech firms are blamed for manipulative algorithms, data extraction and foreign influence. Yet, at the same time, many Governments have discovered that these very platforms help them maintain power. While condemning big tech
for privacy breaches, Governments are simultaneously exploiting consumer data through targeted advertising, narrative shaping, and the amplification of loyal voices. Political leaders manufacture impressions of widespread support through curated digital noise. Social media makes it easy to cultivate loyalty not through ideological persuasion but through mudslinging against the opposition.
The line between privacy and consent has become so blurred that managing public sentiment increasingly depends on citizens’ digital footprints. Moreover, social media has fundamentally altered how people understand and engage with politics. What were once ideological debates grounded in party manifestos, tea-stall conversations, bus-stand and train discussions and community organiSing have now fragmented into short bursts of anger, sarcasm and reactive commentary.
Every political party closely monitors the online activities of its opponents and creates counter-hashtags within minutes. These micro-rants, memes and abuse-laden exchanges are often short-lived, reflecting both shrinking digital attention spans and increasingly aggressive user behavior.
Political stances today are shaped less by sustained argument and more by instantly shareable emotional reactions, along with the ability to push a hashtag to the top of trending lists for extended periods. Old-school political ideology is dissolving into a rapid-fire culture of momentary outrage.
Rantvolution and the Decline of Street Mobilisation
This dynamic helps explain a contemporary puzzle: Why do rising inequality, inflation, unemployment and corruption not spark the kind of mass movements that history would predict or that one would normally expect in democracies facing such pressures?
For decades, scholars argued that the welfare state softened revolutionary impulses by providing minimal but visible support to the lower classes. In today’s world, that explanation is no longer sufficient.
A new mechanism is at work. Welfare states now provide just enough for people to avoid starvation, but not enough to ensure a dignified life. The growing concentration of wealth feels like capitalism at its peak: a system that enables survival without dignity while keeping public anger bottled up on social media. People still express frustration about governance failures, but instead of gathering in the streets, they increasingly turn to digital platforms.
This trend has created what I call “Rantvolution” a form of digital political expression where frustration is released online rather than through physical protest. Social media provides the emotional satisfaction of outrage without the risk, coordination, or collective effort required for real-world mobilisation.
Psychologists call this digital catharsis. Posting a rant, receiving likes, retweets or upvotes and seeing others agree triggers the same dopamine responses associated with meaningful participation. People feel “heard,” even when the political system remains unchanged and their posts get lost among millions of others.
In effect, millions of isolated online mini-protests replace the kind of shared public anger that historically fueled revolutions. Although it wouldn’t be right to dismiss these rants as useless, there are instances where serious steps have been taken after important issues went viral through a post or video backed by massive retweets or public amplification. As a result, this shift fundamentally alters how dissent operates.
Revolutions and mass movements typically require physical presence, collective risk-taking, and solidarity built through shared hardship. Social media, by contrast, disperses energy across millions of individual screens. Outrage becomes visible but not actionable.
It becomes easier to manage, easier to monitor, and easier to contain. Now, when a protest hashtag trends, counter-hashtags are often launched by organised social-media cells. Their purpose is to dilute, deflect, or neutralise the original movement, ultimately helping the Government in power maintain narrative control and prevent online outrage from escalating into real-world mobilisation.
Data, AI and the Personalisation of Political Reality
In this environment, the role of data becomes even more crucial. Every like, comment, pause, or share feeds datasets that drive political micro-targeting. AI models trained on both knowingly and unknowingly shared data are now highly effective at predicting voter behavior and emotional triggers.
The Cambridge Analytica incident remains a clear example, where Facebook data was used to influence voter perceptions. During the recently concluded Bihar election, users on the Bihar subreddit reported that posts critical
of the incumbent NDA Government were being removed — illustrating how online moderation practices can shape political discussion. Similar strategies appear in many elections through tailored political ads that deliver different messages to different demographic groups.
AI does not simply analyse public sentiment; it actively shapes and reinforces it through hyper-personalised narratives. The rise of AI-generated bots and deepfake content further amplifies this influence. The fusion of data, AI, and political communication is quietly restructuring power, giving Governments and tech companies unprecedented control over public perception.
Digital Pressure Valves and the Future of Participation This is where the Nepal case becomes particularly instructive. When the Nepali Government abruptly removed digital outlets for expression, the “dam” of online frustration broke, spilling onto the streets. Social media functions as a regulation valve: it allows public anger to be released gradually, indirectly helping Governments prevent sudden explosions of dissent.
As long as these digital outlets exist, Governments can track grievances, craft counter-narratives and diffuse pressure without facing organised, physical opposition. While it cannot be entirely ruled out that online campaigns or digital outrage may one day translate into street movements, experience so far suggests this is unlikely.
At the same time, venting frustration online appears to reduce the inclination to take to the streets, creating a kind of digital pacification. But how long will this last? According to recent global inequality assessments — including Oxfam’s 2025 inequality briefing and Indian media reporting —more than 80 per cent of countries now show widening income gaps.
At the same time, many states, including several democracies, are becoming more authoritarian. The combination of deepening inequality and tightening control raises a critical question: Will citizens continue to accept digital venting as a substitute for real political action? Or will the dam eventually overflow?
For now, Rantvolution mitigates the violence that pressure groups sometimes direct at the state by providing people with a space to express their anger. But it also empowers Governments and tech giants to shape the narrative more subtly than ever before. In the long run, the danger is not that people will revolt, but that they may forget what genuine political participation looks like.