Billionaire-proof open social media is now mission-critical infrastructure for the future of democracy.
@ntnsndr I’m struggling to think of democracies that have become more healthy over the period in which social media became widespread. Isn’t there a serious argument to be made that we would be better off without social media?
@UlrikeHahn @ntnsndr It depends what you mean by social media.
The agora enabled Athenian democracy.
Coffeehouses and salons fueled the rise of Enlightenment republicanism.
Early social networks aided the Arab Spring.
But once powerful figure out how to centralize those platforms, they become counter-democratic.
@ntnsndr I guess I’m not yet convinced that it is only “centralization” that is the problem…or to put it differently, clearly central features of what we’ve had (attention economy driven algorithmic amplification) have been bad, but I’m not sure that even those aspects are neutralised that there doesn’t remain more risk than benefit - at least given where we have arrived now…