They called 2020 the year of autocratization.

And so we're now in this period of democratic decline,

not just in kind of fledgling democracies,

relatively new democracies,

but for the first time,

we're seeing the most liberal democracies

like the United States and the UK decline as well.

Yeah, so that begs the question,

why the heck did democratization peak and then reverse?

Well, that's the million dollar question,

and everybody, of course, would like to answer that.

The biggest theory out there is it has something to do

with the rise of the internet and social

and unregulated social media.

Wow.

And if you look, which regions, for example,

had democratic decline last,

it correlates with internet penetration.

No.

So as the internet penetrated different regions of the world,

they penetrated the wealthier regions first.

And in countries where people relied most heavily

...