The Inescapable Town Square
Social media is a throwback, combining the worst of prior eras of communication
Symposium
Across the political spectrum, a consensus has arisen that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other digital platforms are laying ruin to public discourse. They trade on snarkiness, trolling, outrage, and conspiracy theories, and encourage tribalism, information bubbles, and social discord. How did we get here, and how can we get out? The essays in this symposium seek answers to the crisis of “digital discourse” beyond privacy policies, corporate exposés, and smarter algorithms.
Social media is a throwback, combining the worst of prior eras of communication
A society that doesn’t tear itself apart online must raise kids who know life offline
Proposed privacy and bot laws don’t target real problems, and would cause needless harm
Making digital conversations humane will require defining our online relationships
Why the platform should be fixed from the bottom up, not the top down
How the fantasies of the TV era created the disaster of social media
