This is perhaps the most interesting thing I've read about the problem of the online environment and, in a way, it speaks to my sense that we need fundamentally new institutions: Eli Pariser, To Mend a Broken Internet, Create Online Parks, Wired, October 13, 2020.
Much of our communal life now unfolds in digital spaces that feel public but are not. When technologists refer to platforms like Facebook and Twitter as “walled gardens”—environments where the corporate owner has total control—they’re literally referring to those same private pleasure gardens that Whitman was reacting to. And while Facebook and Twitter may be open to all, as in those gardens, their owners determine the rules.
Venture-backed platforms make poor quasi-public spaces for three reasons.
First, as the legendary venture capitalist Paul Graham put it, “startups = growth.” The focus on growth—of users, of time spent, and then of revenue—is the defining trait that has made Facebook a $750 billion company. And the key to rapid growth is optimization to create a “frictionless” experience: The more relevant the content you see, the likelier you are to click, return to Facebook, and bring your friends.
But friction is essential to public space. Public spaces are so generative precisely because we run into people we’d normally avoid, encounter events we’d never expect, and have to negotiate with other groups that have their own needs. The social connections that run-ins create, social scientists tell us, are critical in binding communities together across lines of difference. Building a healthy community requires the careful generation of this thick web of social ties. Rapid growth can quickly overwhelm and destroy it—as anyone who has lived in a gentrifying neighborhood knows.
Second, “blitz-scaling”—explosive, aggressive growth—generally requires command-and-control leaders who make fast decisions. Once the territory is conquered, blitz-scaling commanders naturally become Boy Emperors with huge blind spots. [...]
The third and biggest problem with private ownership of quasi-public space is that public spaces require constant, active care and maintenance by skillful stewards. Scholars like Sarah Roberts have pointed out that the nuanced labor of governance and maintenance—finding the balance between welcoming everyone and providing safety and comfort for everyone—is critical to the health of online communities.
Any librarian can tell you that running a space that is truly welcoming to everyone is difficult and messy under the best of circumstances. [...]
But while this work is essential, it’s also both undervalued and costly. [...]
Alongside and between the digital corporate empires, we need what scholars like Ethan Zuckerman are calling “digital public infrastructure.” We need parks, libraries, and truly public squares on the internet.
Three problems: 1) money, "a guilty-but-loaded tech mogul ... the Andrew Carnegie of the 21st century", 2) "We need to rally a diverse, representative generation of builders to this cause," and three:
Finally, there’s a problem of public imagination. Fixing our ability to connect and build healthy communities at scale is arguably an Apollo mission for this generation—a decisive challenge that will determine whether our society progresses or falls back into conspiracy-driven tribalism. We need to summon the creative will worthy of a problem of this urgency and consequence.
Alas, I fear that may be a tough sell. The Apollo mission was conceptually simple; everyone could see the moon and everyone knew what planes and rockets were. It doesn't take much imagination to connect the two. The need for public online spaces is not so readily approachable, in part because people think we've already got them in Facebook and Twitter. Many know there are problems, but seeing these spaces as in fact being electronic walled gardens, that's tricky.
OTOH, perhaps my inherent revulsion at Facebook's forced interface change reflects the fact that I act like FB is a public space, open to me and my friends, and FB is saying, no, it's not public, it's ours and you are here on our sufferance. If so, then I take the relative lack of push-back against FB as an index that people don't realize FB is not public.
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