WASHINGTON: It is the start of the new year, and it is customary for people across the world to make resolutions. Some falter those, while some persevere to abide by them.
Take, for example, US Ohio Governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who, in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, said that he would leave social media this year as a part of his new year resolution.
"I plan to become a social-media teetotaler in 2026. On New Year's Eve, I deleted X and Instagram from my phone," he said in the opinion piece.
Ramaswamy then said that his team would use the social media platforms to campaign on his behalf. He would spend time with real voters himself, and said it would make him 'happier'.
"There's a fine line between using the internet to distribute your message and inadvertently allowing constant internet feedback to alter your message. That isn't using social media; it's letting social media use you," Ramaswamy opined in the Wall Street Journal.
Ramaswamy then explained how social media initially aimed to connect leaders with the voters, as it helped in getting real-time feedback. But modern social media algorithm is skewed due to the extensive use of bots. As a person clicks on a post, similar posts pop up with the same viewpoint, alienating the leader from the masses.
"Social media offers a tempting alternative: free, abundant real-time feedback. It creates the impression that you're hearing directly from "the people" and responding in kind. Modern social media is increasingly disconnected from the electorate. The messages you're most likely to see are the most negative and bombastic, because they're most likely to receive rapid "likes" and "reposts"--and that drives revenue for social media content creators," he said.
"If you click on one post about a topic, suddenly that viewpoint appears everywhere you look, skewing your view of reality. That's harmless if you're a knitting hobbyist who might overestimate how many fellow citizens know the difference between a knit and a purl stitch," he added.
Ramaswamy cautioned against mistaking online commentary for real world picture and polarisation.
"On its own, random people saying outrageous things on the internet, and even making money from it, isn't a major problem. But when those in power mistake online commentary for real-world consensus, they make decisions based on a distorted picture of what those citizens really want," he said.
Ramaswamy explained how social media spewed the hatred poison against Republicans, inciting doubts that the assassination attempt of US President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was staged.
"A recent report revealed that engagement with the X account of the now-notorious white nationalist Nick Fuentes shows signs of being "unusually fast, unusually concentrated and unusually foreign in origin." Another investigation showed that hundreds of bots drove the pro-Democrat #BlueCrew hashtag, amplifying false claims that the assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pa., was staged," he said.
Ramaswamy delved into his personal experience, saying that after his speech in Turning Point USA's AmericaFest conference in December, he faced social media backlash after he said that the US is a nation defined above all by ideals, not shared bloodlines.
But on the spot, he received "a standing ovation from a politically engaged audience of well over 20,000 attendees," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
He said in the Wall Street Journal that he did not intend to sway people away from social media, but used the space to caution leaders against using it as a real-time tool to understand public opinion. Doing which, he says, is like "looking through a broken mirror."
Addressing the recent waves of racial slurs he got over being of Indian-origin, Ramaswamy said that the on-ground reality was the stark opposite.
"In 2025 I saw a spate of shocking racial slurs and worse on social media. Yet that same year I visited tens of thousands of voters across all of Ohio's 88 counties--from inner cities to farms, union halls to factories, Republican rallies to one-on-one discussions with protesters--and I didn't hear a single bigoted remark from an Ohio voter the entire year," he said.
Before putting the pen down, Ramaswamy said on a lighter note that if this resolution turns out to be like his previous ones, he "might be back to scrolling X by March."
He then invited his fellow Republicans to join him in this initiative, speculating that it might prove to be an "extra X-factor that helps us secure victories in 2026," as he said in the Wall Street Journal.