When Algorithms Rewrite History: Governing the Digital Erosion of Democratic Memory

Image: Sergey Nivens / shutterstock.com

As Spain marked the fiftieth anniversary of Francisco Franco’s death in November 2025, the country’s reckoning with its past collided with social media platforms amplifying distorted versions of the dictatorship to millions of young Spaniards. On platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter), misleadingly sanitized narratives portraying the Franco dictatorship as an era of peace and economic modernization circulate widely among young Spaniards. These short, emotionally resonant videos, often presented with humour or as a form of counter-cultural rebellion, are for many their first encounter with this complex period. This phenomenon is not just about individual pieces of misinformation; it is about how the very architecture of our digital public square is reshaping collective memory, influencing what is remembered, what fades, and how political attitudes form at a pace that democratic institutions struggle to match.

This digital erosion of shared history creates a profound problem. As the writer Paco Cerdà recently observed in The New York Times, “Franco is not past. Franco is present. And he will continue to be as long as we Spaniards do not come together to bury him.”  But the ground for that burial is shifting, as social media platforms replace schools, archives, and public broadcasters as the primary storytellers of our collective history.

Spain’s unsettled historical landscape

For decades after its transition to democracy, Spain postponed a full reckoning with the dictatorship. The ‘Pact of Forgetting’—an unwritten agreement among political elites to avoid confronting the violent legacy of the dictatorship in the interest of a peaceful transition—eased the shift to civilian rule but left unresolved questions of truth, accountability, and public memory. Unlike postwar Germany, which grounded its democratic identity in an unambiguous rejection of Nazism, or Italy, which built a shared anti-fascist narrative, Spain never developed a comparable collective repudiation of its authoritarian past. This created a long-standing vacuum that social media platforms are now filling.

For many young Spaniards born long after Franco’s death in 1975, these platforms privilege speed, emotion, and performance over historical accuracy. As Cerdà notes, a segment of young viewers now treats Franco as a form of counter-cultural identity. In his words, “Franco is the new punk.” Survey data reinforce this concern. A 2024 poll found that 26 percent of Spanish men aged 18 to 26 believe that “in some circumstances authoritarianism is preferable to democracy.” Nearly thirty percent of voters under 24 now support the far-right Vox party. Young Spaniards face real economic pressure, including temporary contracts, gig-style work, and unaffordable housing. These conditions create frustration that can make simplified, nostalgic online narratives about the past more appealing, especially when platforms are designed to promote the content that attracts the most clicks and reactions.

Algorithmic memory and democratic stability

The challenge is the broader phenomenon of algorithmic memory: the way social media platforms, through their ranking systems, decide which versions of history people encounter and how those narratives are framed. Content that provokes curiosity, anger, or mockery travels far. Material that requires context or patience, like the extensive documentation of the Franco regime’s political violence, repression, forced labour, and systematic censorship, rarely reaches large audiences.

Educators in Spain increasingly report that students repeat claims encountered online rather than what they learn in class. When institutions lose their ability to shape a shared understanding of the past, democratic debate becomes more vulnerable to distortion. This erosion does not occur through overt censorship. It is produced by the accumulation of thousands of unseen algorithmic choices that determine what people see and what they stop seeing.

A broader pattern of authoritarian nostalgia

Spain is not an exception. Across Europe, the United States, and Latin America, political movements have adapted quickly to platform logic.

In the United States, the modern revival of ‘America First’ often circulates online without any reference to its origins. The nativist America First Committee of 1940–41 opposed US entry into World War II and included prominent figures who expressed open sympathy for Nazi Germany, including Charles Lindbergh. That history is almost entirely absent from the slogan’s current digital life, where it is often presented as a simple appeal to patriotism rather than a reference to a deeply divisive era.

The pattern is even more pronounced in contexts where historical education is uneven or transitional justice remains incomplete. Digital platforms grow rapidly in these gaps, offering a sense of identity or belonging to users who feel disconnected from traditional institutions. Nostalgia becomes a political resource. It can recast democratic institutions as weak or obstructive and present authoritarian leaders as symbols of strength or order.

In fragile and post-conflict settings, the risks are sharper. Algorithmic mediation can distort public understanding of past violence, weaken transitional justice processes, and reopen divides that peace agreements aimed to resolve. Societies that lack broadly shared historical reference points are especially vulnerable to manipulation and rapid polarization.

Governance’s blind spot

Most democratic responses to authoritarian resurgence focus on inequality, governance failures, corruption, or political polarization. These remain essential concerns. Yet they all assume a minimal level of shared historical understanding, and that assumption no longer holds.

Earlier generations recognized that communication infrastructures shaped public life. Radio and television operated under public interest obligations. Today’s social media platforms reach far larger audiences, personalize content at scale, and operate with limited oversight. Their core incentives reward novelty, emotional intensity, and rapid engagement. These incentives work against accuracy, shared experience, and democratic deliberation. Institutions are no longer competing simply with alternative narratives. They are competing with systems that weaken the very capacity to maintain a collective narrative at all.

A governance agenda for the digital mediation of memory

Treating social media platforms as active participants in shaping historical memory does not require assuming hostile intent. It requires governance frameworks that reflect the scale and influence of these systems.

1. Transparency of content ranking. Platforms should explain how historical and political content is selected and ordered for users. During elections, national commemorations, or periods of heightened tension, users should have the option of a chronological, non-personalized feed.
2. Risk-based standards for amplification. Democracies can work with platforms to identify categories of content that create systemic risk when algorithmically elevated, such as material that denies or trivializes mass atrocities or authoritarian repression. The goal is not to impose official narratives but to prevent automated systems from giving such content disproportionate visibility.
3. Public interest historical infrastructure. Museums, archives, independent media, and public broadcasters need sustained support to present credible historical accounts in contemporary formats, including short-form video and digital storytelling. Collaboration across education, journalism, and peacebuilding can help ensure that reliable content remains accessible.
4. Civic and digital literacy. Historical education now requires understanding how social media shapes exposure to the past. A consensus-based curriculum on the realities of authoritarian periods provides a durable counterweight to online distortion. Young people need to understand why certain content spreads, how ranking systems operate, and how nostalgia can become a tool of political mobilization.

Reclaiming democratic memory

Spain’s renewed commitment to strengthening education on the Franco era is a significant step. Yet the pace of algorithmic amplification exposes the growing asymmetry between institutions that move slowly and platforms that circulate emotionally charged narratives in real time. Societies that hesitate to confront painful histories now face a second challenge: social media platforms that reshape memory faster than institutions can respond.

The lesson extends well beyond Spain. Social media now shapes public understanding of the past as decisively as schools, archives, or public broadcasters once did. Democracies must treat these systems as civic institutions in their own right and apply the same seriousness they bring to media governance, education, and transitional justice. Only by pairing historical reckoning with credible oversight of algorithmic systems can societies sustain a coherent understanding of their past. Without such an approach, the foundations of democratic life will continue to erode.

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Jordan Ryan is a member of the Toda International Research Advisory Council (TIRAC) at the Toda Peace Institute, a Senior Consultant at the Folke Bernadotte Academy and former UN Assistant Secretary-General with extensive experience in international peacebuilding, human rights, and development policy. His work focuses on strengthening democratic institutions and international cooperation for peace and security. Ryan has led numerous initiatives to support civil society organisations and promote sustainable development across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He regularly advises international organisations and governments on crisis prevention and democratic governance.