Technology Press Conversation on Tech Regulation: Reconciling Social Media & Democracy

On October 7th, Tech Policy Press hosted a mini-conference, Reconciling Social Media and Democracy.

While various solutions to problems at the intersection of social media and democracy are under consideration, from regulation to antitrust action, some experts are enthusiastic about the opportunity to create a new social media ecosystem that relies less on centrally managed platforms like Facebook and more on decentralized, interoperable services and components. 

The first discussion at the event took on the notion of ‘middleware’ for content moderation, and the second discussion looked at this question through the lens of what it might mean for the fight against misinformation. The third discussion featured Cory Doctorow, who discussed the notion of competitive compatibility. And the fourth was a discussion on what projects point to the possibility of a more decentralized future, Tracy Chou, founder and CEO of Block Party, a company that builds anti-harassment tools against online abuse, and Michael Masnick, the editor of Techdirt.

This fifth features Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan, Professor in the UCLA Department of Information Studies, and Director of UC Digital Cultures Lab, who with Dipayan Ghosh was the author of the article Reining in Big Tech in the Journal of Democracy series on the future of platform power that served as the basis for some of the discussion at the event. At the end of the session, you will hear Dr. Nathalie Maréchal and Richard Reisman, two participants in the first session of the day, offer thoughts in reply, along with Bryan Jones, who is chairman and cofounder of Tech Policy Press.