Many social media platforms, such as Facebook, utilize surveillance infrastructure to collect user data and micro-target populations with personalized advertisements. With users leaving digital footprints almost everywhere they go, social media platforms are able to create portfolios of the user and target them with specific advertisements. This leads to the formation of "echo chambers, polarisation and hyper-partisanship." Social media platforms therefore, create bubbles, which are forever growing, of one-sided information and opinions, trapping the users and diminishing opportunities for a healthy discourse. A commonly known effect social media has on democracy is the "spread of false and/or misleading information". Disinformation and Misinformation is commonly, at scale, spread across social media by both state and private actors, mainly using bots. Each type poses a threat as it floods social media with multiple, competing realities shifting the truth, facts and evidence to the side. Social media follows an algorithm that converts popularity into legitimacy, this is the idea that likes or retweets create validity or mass support. In theory, it creates a distorted system of evaluating information and provides a false representation. It's further harder to distinguish who is a troll or a bot. Social media further allows for manipulation by "populist leaders, governments and fringe actors". "Populist" leaders use platforms such as Twitter, Instagram to communicate with their electorate. However, such platforms allow them to roam freely with no restrictions allowing them to silence the minority voice, showcase momentum for their views or creating the impression of approval. Finally, social media causes the disruption of the public square. Some social media platforms have user policies and technical features that enable unintended consequences, such as hate speech, terrorist appeals, sexual and racial harassment, thus discouraging any civil debates. This leads the targeted groups to opting out of participating in public discourse.