Two political influencers social media figures, Kat Abughazaleh and CJ Pearson, took the stage at the WIRED World Fair in Miami on Wednesday to debate how digital platforms are reshaping politics after Tuesday’s midterm elections. Their discussion exposed a sharp partisan divide but also a shared concern: algorithms are fracturing the public’s sense of reality.
A New Information Pipeline
A recent YouGov survey of 2,000 adults found that nearly 65 percent rely on digital creators for political information. Among Gen Z, that figure rises to 77 percent. With Democrats capturing both the House and Senate in a historic wave, the influence of online personalities is only likely to grow.
Abughazaleh, who ran for an Illinois House seat as a Democrat earlier this year, and Pearson, a Republican strategist and former RNC Youth Advisory Council member, represent opposite ends of the political spectrum. Yet both acknowledged that the algorithmic delivery of news is creating echo chambers for young Americans of all political stripes.
White House Outreach and Its Critics
The Trump administration has actively courted right-wing creators. Former press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened formal briefings to digital creators and hosted influencer-specific sessions, a move criticized for favoring friendly questions while traditional media access was curtailed. Pearson, who has been involved in these efforts, said multiple federal agencies are now adopting the White House’s approach.
“It’s a very chronically online administration,” Pearson said, arguing that short attention spans require making politics interesting. He did, however, call the administration’s decision to share portions of the Epstein files with 15 right-wing creators last year “a misstep.”
Abughazaleh, a former Media Matters reporter, offered a darker view. She pointed to the Department of Education’s use of the “Malfoid” meme—a gender-bent Harry Potter fascist figure—as an appeal to a too-online audience of “incels.” She also criticized the White House’s embrace of “AI slop and brutality,” including ads about ICE actions, saying it turns “cruelty into content” rather than informing the public.
“They’re trying to ruin your attention span,” she said.
Clashes and Common Ground
The forum featured testy exchanges, including whether ICE facilities can be called “concentration camps”—a term Abughazaleh has used consistently, and which she was arrested for protesting outside an ICE facility last year. The charges were later dropped after allegations of prosecutorial misconduct before a grand jury. The two also sparred over Pearson’s claim that Elon Musk had turned X into a “bastion of free speech.”
Despite their disagreements, both agreed that reliance on algorithms is increasingly creating echo chambers. Pearson noted that his friends on the left sometimes send him articles on political topics he hasn’t seen, asking whether that fragmentation is good for society or democracy.
Abughazaleh put it more bluntly: “We have no shared reality.”
