Alas, the euphoria soon faded, said Ghonim, because “we failed to build consensus, and the political struggle led to intense polarization.” Social media, he noted, “only amplified” the polarization “by facilitating the spread of misinformation, rumors, echo chambers, and hate speech. The environment was purely toxic. My online world became a battleground filled with trolls, lies, hate speech.” Supporters of the army and the Islamists used social media to smear each other, while the democratic center, which Ghonim and so many others occupied, got marginalized. Their revolution was stolen by the
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