New_ Public

Does your town have a local forum or group? Some of these spaces are really useful, and surprisingly healthy and fun! Others are not. But we see the seeds for potential greatness. New_ Public Co-Director Eli Pariser (MoveOn, UpWorthy, The Filter Bubble) on why we’re getting serious about these local digital spaces:

New report by Project Liberty and The Aspen Institute synthesizes insights from experts across sectors and proposes potential interventions for fostering more ethical technology: ✅ Create a shared vision and common metrics across experts and consumers ✅ Create market incentives for responsible tech to be mainstream ✅ Advance public interest technology for a healthier digital economy

Over the past week, Youtube has started testing a moderation and fact-checking system similar to Twitter/X’s Community Notes! There's a growing need to fight misleading information online, and crowdsourced context could be a promising way to get trustworthy checks on content. 

Last week, at the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival, I attended two sessions that were so oversubscribed that people were actually sitting on the floor. Surprisingly, these were not the sessions with tech guru Kara Swisher and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, or even the session with author Michael Lewis talking about Sam Bankman-Fried. The standing-room-only sessions were Dr. Vivek Murthy’s, the US Surgeon General who talked about loneliness, and the session with The New York Times columnist David Brooks, who facilitated a panel on happiness. So, what’s going on? Even with all of the amazing technology that instantly connects us with anyone and everyone all over the world, people feel more alone than ever. Why? Because left to our devices (pun intended!), we aren’t connecting. With others or ourselves. Here’s the thing: connection and community don’t create themselves. We have to be intentional. Here are three people who have some ideas about how: – Dr. Vivek Murthy shared that one out of two people are living with loneliness, and the number is even higher for young people. His advice: If you want to feel less lonely, focus on what he calls the “triad of fulfillment: Belonging, Purpose, and Service.” If you focus on these three things you will be healthier, happier, and you’ll be contributing to a better world. – Kasley Killam, MPH, social scientist and author of a new book, The Art and Science of Connection believes that our “social health” is as important as our physical and mental health. Her advice: “Social health comes not only from relationships with individuals, but also from belonging to communities.” Reflect on the strength of those relationships, how satisfied you are with them, and what you can do to improve them. Her book includes a very handy spreadsheet to actually write down and develop a strategy to improve your social health. The key is intentionality! – Deepti Doshi, Co-Director of New_ Public talked about how loneliness is connected to trust, how we are in a crisis of trust, and how most people don’t have a sense of belonging. In fact, only 19% of Gen Z trust their neighbors vs. 50% of Boomers. Her advice: Identify community stewards. We need people in our neighborhoods (and in our companies and organizations) whose job it is to curate connection. And, getting to really know someone builds trust. Either BE the community steward in your neighborhood, family, or office or find one! So, what do these wise ones all have in common? They know the ROI of human connection, and they don’t leave it to chance. In other words, they’re great human leaders. (btw, if you want to become a great human leader and feel less lonely in the process, stay tuned for a very exciting invitation to join a cohort of Managers on a Mission just like you this fall!)

New_ Public Co-Director Eli Pariser went on Pod Save America to answer Hank Green’s question: Can social media sites violate the first amendment? Are these sites “public squares”?

Imagine a web that cares more about people than it cares about money… David Dylan Thomas explores how “people-oriented” designs can resist systems of oppression and uphold our core values — and how we can work together to remedy the hurt from engagement-centered designs. 

Imagine if an online discussion is more like a town hall meeting  — every participant has  equal opportunity to respond and the loudest or most aggressive voices can’t commandeer the room. This is just one example of what Public Spaces Incubator is working on for  public media broadcasters. 

Could our technology serve us better if we start centering the most impacted and at-risk members of society in the tech design process? In this 2022 report, the “Design from the Margins” framework offers an alternative that reduces blindspots and makes technology better, safer, and more resilient for everyone. 

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“These companies have turned on their customers. We were sold a false promise, which was that social media was built to stay connected to your friends and family and help you share what you’re up to,” Lam said. “A decade later, it’s just this platform for them to harvest data to train on.”