Podcast Summary
Exploring solutions for healthy pluralistic societies in digital spaces: Eli Pariser's New Public Festival aims to reimagine digital platforms as public spaces, fostering healthy pluralistic societies by considering digital interactions beyond just information flow.
The challenges of communication and understanding in a divided society, including the dangers of personalized digital spaces and echo chambers, are solvable. Eli Pariser, author of "The Filter Bubble" and founder of Civic Signals, is working on this issue through the New Public Festival. He and his team are exploring how digital platforms can be reimagined as public spaces where strangers can behave well together, building on research into the sociological aspects of these spaces. This shift in perspective, from focusing on information flow to considering digital platforms as spaces, opens up new possibilities for fostering healthy pluralistic societies. The New Public Festival is a first step towards imagining and implementing these solutions.
Designing digital neighborhoods for positive social interactions: Digital spaces lack inherent structures for positive social interactions, so it's crucial to build comprehensive digital neighborhoods with alternative social products and public digital infrastructure to foster healthy social fabric and potentially establish a global public square.
The design of physical cities and digital platforms both play a crucial role in shaping social interactions. Just as urban planning and zoning laws influence how people behave in real life, digital platforms can also script social norms and create affordances for certain behaviors. However, unlike physical cities, digital spaces lack the inherent structures and limitations that encourage positive social interactions. The absence of park benches, libraries, or public squares in the digital world can lead to issues such as isolation, addiction, and the breakdown of truth and trust. Therefore, it's essential to focus on building a comprehensive digital neighborhood that includes alternative social products and public digital infrastructure. Only then can we create a healthy digital social fabric and potentially establish a global public square that avoids the mistakes of the past. The recent trend of building alternative social platforms is encouraging, as there seems to be a growing consumer demand for new ways to interact online that prioritize positive social experiences.
Effective online community management requires localized and decentralized approach: Decentralized platforms with local governance and skilled moderators foster sustainable online communities, unlike global platforms with one-size-fits-all solutions.
Effective online community management requires a localized and decentralized approach, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all global solution. The speaker argues that platforms like Reddit, with their heavily moderated subreddits and clear rules, provide a more sustainable model for hosting human life online than global platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This is because human norms and expressions vary greatly across cultures and communities, making it difficult for a single algorithm to accommodate everyone. Moreover, local governance and control over online spaces foster a sense of ownership and experimentation, allowing communities to define their own rules and values. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of skilled moderators and the need to compensate them for their work, as the current reliance on volunteer moderators is unsustainable. Overall, the speaker advocates for a more nuanced and decentralized approach to online community management, recognizing the unique challenges and opportunities of digital spaces.
The current model of large tech companies hosting global conversations is unsustainable: Large tech companies prioritize growth and profit over community building and governance, leading to issues like polarization and the prioritization of revenue-driving features over essential services. An alternative, community-driven model may offer a solution, but implementing it presents challenges.
The current models of large tech companies hosting global public conversations, as seen in platforms like Facebook and Twitter, are unsustainable due to their focus on growth and profit over community building and governance. This approach can lead to issues like polarization, the inability to effectively address local content policies, and the prioritization of revenue-driving features over essential community services. An alternative model, such as Wikipedia's, which emphasizes community-driven content and governance, may offer a more effective solution for hosting global conversations. However, implementing such a model on a large scale presents its own challenges. It's essential to consider the design of these digital public spaces, including the size, affordances, and hours of operation, as well as the governance structure to ensure that diverse voices are represented and local concerns are addressed. Ultimately, a more sustainable and equitable approach to hosting global conversations online will require a shift in priorities and a commitment to the long-term health of these digital communities.
Creating healthy digital communities through intentional moderation and quality conversation: Focus on building intentional digital spaces with quality conversation and moderation to foster healthy, symbiotic relationships and community engagement.
Building healthy and symbiotic relationships in social spaces requires careful moderation and a focus on quality conversation, rather than just engagement at any cost. An example of this is Front Porch Forum in Vermont, which is a heavily moderated, local conversation space that has been successful in growing and maintaining a strong community despite the rise of more commodified social media platforms. Urban planning provides a metaphor for this concept, as the design of physical spaces and the programming of activities within them can greatly impact how people interact and build connections. In digital life, we lack this intentional programming, often leading to spaces that lack the diversity and depth of interaction found in more vibrant, community-driven spaces. To truly address the rips in our social fabric, we need to focus on creating spaces that bring diverse constituencies together in fun and engaging ways, rather than assuming that better political dialogue is the sole solution.
Fostering connections beyond politics: Designing digital spaces for shared activities and experiences can foster meaningful relationships and build diverse communities, expanding beyond political conversations and debates.
Creating meaningful connections and building communities go beyond just political conversations and debates. These connections can be fostered through shared activities and experiences that bring people together, creating a sense of familiarity and safety. However, the design and prioritization of digital spaces often reflect the perspectives of a limited demographic, and expanding the ecosystem to include a wider range of voices and experiences can lead to more inclusive and diverse digital communities. It's important to remember that not all public spaces are designed solely for political discourse, and fostering relationships and community through shared activities can help create a more balanced and harmonious society.
Community-focused urban planning: Effective urban planning values agency, autonomy, and inclusivity, contrasting with destructive top-down approaches. Learn from the past and embrace a collaborative approach for public spaces that foster belonging and investment.
Effective urban planning requires a community-focused approach that values agency, autonomy, and inclusivity. This contrasts with top-down, technocratic approaches that have historically led to destructive outcomes, such as those exemplified by Robert Moses and Le Corbusier. Instead, successful urban planning draws inspiration from the complex, evolving structures of livable cities, as observed by Jane Jacobs. For instance, the safety and sense of community in areas like Greenwich Village stem from the presence of eyes on the street and a sense of mutual responsibility among residents. By learning from the past and embracing a more collaborative approach, we can create public spaces that truly foster a sense of belonging and investment for all.
Collaborative public design for urban environments and digital platforms: Effective public design involves community collaboration, fostering relationships, and promoting forgiveness and growth in both physical and digital spaces.
Successful public design should involve the community in the process, creating a collaborative space for co-creation and codesigning. This approach, as discussed, has been proven effective in improving urban environments, such as reducing crime rates and litter, by establishing norms and fostering relationships. This concept extends beyond physical spaces to digital platforms like social media, where a lack of forgiveness and room for mistakes can hinder individual and societal growth. To address this issue, innovative solutions like a "mistake button" on Twitter, as proposed by Nick Punts, could encourage public acknowledgement and apology for errors, promoting a more forgiving and growth-oriented culture. Ultimately, the goal is to create public spaces, both physical and digital, that respect and embrace our full humanness, allowing for experimentation, growth, and learning.
Investing in building healthy online communities: Companies like Facebook and Google should fund human labor force to build healthy online communities, including experts, social workers, librarians, and editors, not by taxing them to death but resetting the equilibrium.
Strengthening relationships and building healthier online communities go beyond just sharing information. It's about creating spaces where people trust that there's a good person underneath, even when we disagree. The decentralized web and platforms like Change My View are exciting solutions, but we need to support and fund the human labor force that helps make sense of information and build healthy communities. This includes experts, social workers, librarians, and editors. Companies like Facebook and Google, which have displaced traditional social infrastructure, should contribute to funding these functions and rebuilding healthy civil society. This is not about taxing them to death, but rather resetting the equilibrium. We've seen examples in other industries, like energy, where businesses make more money by wasting resources. It's time to apply this thinking to the digital world and invest in building healthy online communities.
Rethinking Monetization Models for the Greater Good: Businesses and tech companies can redirect revenue towards public funds for renewable energy, journalism, research, and digital public spaces.
Businesses and tech companies, including utilities and tech giants like Facebook and Google, can rethink their monetization models to contribute to the greater good, rather than just increasing profits. For instance, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) uses excess energy consumption fees to fund renewable energy infrastructure. Similarly, tech companies like Facebook and Google could redirect advertising revenue towards public funds for revitalizing journalism, research, and creating new digital public spaces. The New Public Festival, which aims to explore these ideas, is planning a participatory and interactive virtual event, focusing on designing healthy public spaces, both physical and digital, and ensuring safety and security for meaningful conversations. The festival also plans to create a design patterns library as a lasting resource for inspiration and examples of effective social spaces.
Exploring the Future of Public Life Online: Prioritizing Community, Connection, and Development: There's a need for alternative digital spaces that prioritize community, connection, and developmentally appropriate experiences, especially for children. Speakers emphasized the importance of creating considerate digital infrastructure for user well-being, hoping for a new public infrastructure movement to power digital innovation.
There's a growing desire and need for alternative, thoughtfully designed digital spaces that prioritize community, connection, and developmentally appropriate experiences for users, particularly children. This was discussed during a World Cafe event where various thinkers, including psychologists and futurists, came together to explore the future of public life online and inspire solutions to the challenges posed by current commodified digital spaces. The speakers emphasized the importance of creating spaces that are not just engaging but also considerate of users' well-being and development, as opposed to the infinite scrolling feeds that currently dominate. The hope is that this conversation will lead to the creation of new public infrastructure, similar to the free high school education movement in the mid-20th century, that can power the next stage of digital innovation.
Reimagining and reinvesting in public institutions: Let's come together to discuss and explore new ideas for the institutions of the future, like public parks and libraries, at the New Public Festival. It's free and open to the public, both in-person and livestream.
We need to reimagine and reinvest in public institutions that have the power to move society forward in an equitable way. Examples include public parks and libraries. The New Public Festival, mentioned in the conversation, aims to be a part of this project by bringing together diverse voices to discuss and explore new ideas for the institutions of the future. The festival is open to the public and free to attend, with both in-person and livestream options available. The Center For Humane Technology, which produces this podcast, is a leading organization in this effort, and they are grateful for the support of their generous lead supporters. So, let's all come together and think on a larger scale about the institutions we want to leave behind for future generations. To learn more and register for the New Public Festival, visit newpublic.org/festival.
