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Freedom, Truth and Democracy

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The intention of the internet was not to threaten democracy, but it's becoming clear that's exactly what it's doing.To fix this problem, we must broaden the scope — politically, socially, and culturally — of who has power and governance over our digital technologies.The most vulnerable communities should be involved in a solution that can coexist with Silicon Valley.

Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow (The MIT Press)

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RAMESH SRINIVASAN:

Ramesh Srinivasan is Professor of Information Studies and Design Media Arts at UCLA. He makes regular appearances on NPR, The Young Turks, MSNBC, and Public Radio International, and his writings have been published in the Washington Post, Quartz, Huffington Post, CNN, and elsewhere.

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TRANSCRIPT:

RAMESH SRINIVASAN: What has occurred is the internet, which was a publicly funded infrastructure, the web was also a nonprofit initiative. These technologies took all of our public input and monetized that and we directed that content in ways that suited these corporate interests. The intention wasn't to necessarily threaten our democracy or any other institutions that we rely on as Americans and many citizens across the world, but that's been the effect of all of this. And the reason why is the principles of democracy rely on a very open sort of media environment and also factuality. And what has occurred through these technology platforms is not only have they become the places we've gone to to democratically communicate, to access news, specifically Facebook in this case, but what has been made visible to us is dependent on choices that are hidden from plain sight. They are choices that are not even made by the technology companies themselves. They are made by complex computer systems that are optimized for one output and one output only which is to keep us glued, to keep our attention, to keep us online.

So that actually has a splintering effect on a democracy because in a democracy all of us expect some sort of common baseline of information. We expect some exposure to facts. We expect some exposure to a range of different opinions. We do expect though that has eroded a sort of civil sense of dialogue though that does exist but it's less so the case. What we don't expect and represents a threat to democracy are invisible silos where we are exposed to inflammatory, trolling, gaslighting and at times deliberately false content. But that's the new normal when it comes to algorithmic platforms and that's why this all needs to be dealt with right now.

So a digital economy and world that work for the 99 percent are one where, is one where technologies don't support the interests of some at the cost of others. They're sort of a zero sum mentality that can end up costing all of us actually at the end of the day. A digital economy produces prosperity and value for all. It does support business interests. It does support the great developments for consumers that a lot of digital platforms have provided, but that doesn't come at the cost of economic security, of worker security, of diverse opinions, of racial minorities, of indigenous peoples, of women. The issue is that right now our digital world through the technologies that have globalized to the world are more or less structured, influenced and dominated by a few technology companies that are located in a small sliver of the world – Silicon Valley, in Seattle and also actually in China. And they all have different kind of outcomes. But the people who are leading these companies not only are they supposed to develop technologies for their private interest, never mind the effects on the rest of us, but they tend to be in terms of demographics not representative of the vast majority of their users. We don't see many women. We don't see many racial minorities. We do see some Asian and white males.

And so as a result intentionally or not they are coding into the digital world outcomes that are generative of greater inequality. And it's really important to just situate this on top of what our world looks like right now and even our country looks like. Three people or so with the equivalent wealth to 195 million in this country. Whoever would have imagined that. That all has happened in the past few decades. Globally seven or eight people depending on what estimates yo...

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