Description: 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.

In this mini-symposium, we will explore some of these ideas and critique them.

Participants include:

Tracy Chou, founder and CEO of Block Party, software engineer, and diversity advocate
Joan Donovan, Research Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
Cory Doctorow, science fiction author, activist and journalist
Francis Fukuyama, Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Mosbacher Director of FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and Director of Stanford’s Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy
Dipayan Ghosh, Co-Director of the Digital Platforms & Democracy Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and faculty at Harvard Law School
Justin Hendrix, CEO and Editor, Tech Policy Press
Daphne Keller, Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center
Nathalie Maréchal, Senior Policy and Partnerships Manager at Ranking Digital Rights
Michael Masnick, Founder, CEO and Editor, Techdirt
Richard Reisman, innovator, entrepreneur, consultant, and investor
Ramesh Srinivasan, Professor, UCLA Department of Information Studies and Director of UC Digital Cultures Lab

Time: Oct 7, 2021 01:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)