Thread by @docrussjackson

ESSENTIAL READING:

“News feeds on @Facebook or @Twitter operate on a business model of commodifying the attention of billions of people per day. They have led to narrower and crazier views of the world.”

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

"the internet has taken us back to the (American) 1890s: Once again, we have a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful people whose obligations are to themselves, and perhaps to their shareholders, but not to the greater good."

We "cannot ignore the existence of “organized structures aimed at sowing mistrust, undermining democratic stability.” Action must be taken against “inauthentic use” and “automated exploitation” if they harm “civic discourse,” according to the EU’s Digital Services Act".

"The Nazis introduced the Volksempfänger, a cheap wireless transistor set, to broadcast Hitler’s speeches... In America, radio was taken over not by the state but by private media companies chasing ratings—and one of the best ways to get ratings was to promote hatred."

'In Britain, radio was controlled neither by state, as it was in dictatorships, nor by polarizing, profit-seeking companies. Public radio, funded by taxpayers but independent of the govt, would “inform, educate & entertain” AND facilitate democracy by bringing society together'.

'Instead of making people angry, participation in online forums should give the same civic thrill that town halls or social clubs once did. We need to relearn how to run an organization, how to handle disagreement, how to be civilized people who don’t storm out of an argument.'

Polis is a platform that lets people make tweet-like statements & lets others vote on them. There's no “reply” function. The system identifies those that generate the most agreement among different groups. Instead of favoring outrageous views, its algorithm highlights consensus.

A “self-sovereign identity” system would allow individuals to accrue a connective tissue of trusted sources that proves you are real. You could still be anonymous, but it would assure everyone else that you are an actual human, making it possible for platforms to screen out bots.

Twitter 'super-users' rate the platform highly for making them “feel connected,” but give it low marks for “encouraging the humanization of others,” ensuring safety, & producing reliable information. People are eager to embrace reliable, humanizing & less polarizing alternatives.

Nobody wants to live in a city where everything is owned by a few giant corporations, with nothing but malls & billboards—yet that is essentially what the internet is. Democratic cities need parks & libraries & street markets, schools & police stations, sidewalks & art galleries.

'Our future online cities should inhabited by real people sharing ideas & opinions free of digital manipulation or distortion. In this city, government would cede power to citizens who use digital tools to get involved in budgets & building projects, schools & the environment.'

'It would mean being in charge of your own data eg you could give medics all the info they need to help fight diseases but data couldn’t be repurposed. You'd know not only who was behind advertising, political or otherwise, but how your data were used to target you specifically.'

By 1789, its authors knew exactly how bad confederation had been, and they understood what needed to be fixed. Our new internet would also embrace all of the lessons we have so bitterly learned, not only in the past 20 years but over the last few centuries.

We are back into an environment resembling the worst excesses of the past, compete with financial bubbles, exploitative commercialization, vicious polarization, attacks from dictatorships, lying politicians, & organised crime & corruption.

'But these are problems democracies have solved before. The solutions are in our history, in our DNA, in our own memories of how we have fixed broken systems in other eras. The internet was the future once, and it can be again, if we apply the best of the past to the present.'

This THREAD is edited text from this article by ANNE APPLEBAUM, a staff writer at @TheAtlantic , a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of 'Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism'.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

Thanks to @FleetSumner for linking it👍