The 2016 presidential election had seen both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton using social media to  engage the voters. But have you ever wonder if it is possible for the social media companies to use its unprecedented powers to tilt the 2016 presidential election?

I can’t help but to think that if social media company such as Facebook/ LinkedIn tweak their respective algorithm,  they will have the incredible ability  to manipulate millions of people . Given that online media has a huge impact on the daily American lives, the fact that an internet giant like Facebook or Google could turn an election based on hidden changes to its code is a serious cause for concern. Tech Firms can either completely block a candidate or promote him/her.

To be sure, many corporations, including broadcasters and media organizations, have used their vast power to influence elections in all sorts of ways in the past: whether it’s through money, advertising, editorials, or simply the way they present the news. But at no time has one company held so much influence over a large swath of the population – 40% of all news traffic now originates from Facebook – while also having the ability to make changes invisibly.

The key takeaway of this post is to ask ourselves: Do we really want future elections around the world to be decided by the political persuasions of Mark Zuckerberg, or the faceless engineers that control what pops up in your news feed?

[Credits: http://fortune.com/2015/12/01/social-media-2016-election/]