This week we read Digital Technology and Democratic Theory (Introduction and chapters 1 through 3). No class session, but post comments below. Deadline this week is extended to Sunday, November 7th, 11:59pm PST.
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Digital Technology, Society, and Democracy Course Blog 
Throughout the first section of Digital Technology and Democratic Theory, especially in the first two essays, the theorists present competing views on how far digital technology must change to promote democracy rather than degrade it.
Cohen and Fung say that “[g]overnments, through legislation and the construction of regulatory capacity, need to press and monitor companies toward[s]…. designing their platforms to operate in ways that establish the rights and opportunities required by a democratic public sphere” (26).
They “see promise in revived antitrust activity,” believe in an “internet-appropriate analog to must-carry provision,” and support greater privacy protections (47-49).
Landemore, more drastically, proposes a wholesale re-creation of digital technology in the service of democracy, some kind of “Citizenbook… devoted to the task of growing and curating a deliberative platform for any given democracy” (81).
Landomere accurately posits that the most effective way to create democracy-promoting technology is to build it from the ground up. However, Cohen and Fung are correct in that to address the harm technology already causes, governments must focus on the more imprecise tools of regulation. Additionally, even successful government-build democratic platforms only reach a fraction of the users attracted by social media and other digital technologies [1]. As Landemore asserts on page 82, the strategies would be most effective combined.
In an ideal world, a government would commission a democracy platform and use its regulatory powers to curb bad behavior on other sites. Additionally, to reach more citizens, governments could harness the scope of existing social media networks and other digital technologies by encouraging (asking publicly, paying, or requiring) the parent companies to integrate the democracy platform into their services. This plan combines the strategies of Cohen, Jung, and Landemore to maximize the democracy-promoting potential of digital technology.
1: https://www.involve.org.uk/resources/case-studies/decide-madrid
– 400,000 registered users on decideMadrid as of 2018 (6-12% of population, community vs city of Madrid)
– 59% of the Spanish population used social media in 2019, https://www.statista.com/statistics/384390/social-network-penetration-in-spain/
Governments, through
legislation and the construction of regulatory capacity, need to press and
monitor companies toward this end.
Amplified polarization exists due to the power of digital technologies, although its extent is contested (37). The fear of technology promoting “sociopolitical fragmentation” from “ideological echo chambers,” “hyperpersonalized information”, and “algorithms designed to capture user attention” (25) has somewhat been realized. And the consequences are alarming: polarization makes our political culture more antagonistic, makes us more likely to conform, be less trustful in institutions, and less likely to solve problems despite common goals [1].
In Psych, I recently learned about Allport’s Contact Hypothesis, which is:
Under the following conditions:
1)Working together
2)As equals
3)Toward a common goal
4)With the support of authority
interpersonal contact between groups can promote tolerance and acceptance, helping with depolarization [2].
Cohen and Fung’s proposal of the public sphere where “free and equal persons” can reason and engage in public and political engagement with “broad participation and public discussion” (25)– seems to facilitate the aforementioned contact.
A public sphere is conducive to working together. If everyone were to have the 5 communicative freedoms (29 – 30), they’d all be “equals” in the eyes of democracy. And it is implied that the support of authority comes not from legal binds, but rather a byproduct of the political culture (31).
The common goal here would be the common good– not a shared view of what it is, but rather a general concern from different perspectives (32). This I find rather abstract. Should the common good be overall principles like democracy or upholding the Constitution, or consist of coming together on multiple issues such as gun control/abortion? What is already in place doesn’t seem to be enough. I wonder then, what is a common goal strong enough to reduce polarization– given people working together with the support of authority? What about without those givens?
References
1.https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_is_the_true_cost_of_polarization_in_america
2.https://www.thoughtco.com/contact-hypothesis-4772161
The authors note that “the democratic benefits of the mass-media public sphere depended on journalists who genuinely embraced democratic norms and responsibilities” (49). In a digital public sphere we rely not on journalists but each other to uphold democratic ideals in the digital content we create and share. The authors also rightly acknowledge that every member of society is not interchangeable with a professional journalist. Given this reality, the authors suggest that “internet companies should help users behave as citizens by designing their platforms to foster participants’ democratic orientation” (50). My question is how might internet companies go about doing this?
The authors delineate truth, common good, and civility as being “required for a well-functioning democratic public sphere”. I’ll focus on truth because it is very relevant and there are more accessible examples around truth than the others. A crucial point made by the authors is that respecting truthfulness does not mean being right all the time, but instead an effort to get things right.
Instagram currently tags photos that mention COVID or vaccines with a link to reliable information about all things COVID. I’ve never once clicked those links. In fact I just re-downloaded Instagram to test if it gives a blurb about fact-checking when someone posts content, and it appears they do not.
That being said, I think it would be beneficial to encourage users to “[show] and effort to get things right” (31). Does it behoove social media companies to have their users aim for the truth when fake news spreads 6x faster than the truth? At what point do the harms of lying come back on the companies if ever? Does truth benefit companies? These are additional questions I’m considering.
The Instagram COVID resource center, if you’re interested:
https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/coronavirus-keeping-people-safe-informed-and-supported-on-instagram
Digital Technology and Democratic Theory challenges the idea of who is responsible for ensuring the accurate and politically balanced news on all platforms (specifically different platforms online). A 2017 Gallup and Knight Foundation Survey found that the public was relatively even on believing that it is the job of the news media and the job of the individuals themselves.
Companies’ ability to generate algorithms that produce content that is appealing to the user, usually aligning with their current political background to generate more integration and continuous interest, has become commonplace. Companies like Facebook want to curate a feed for their viewers that is appealing and will continue interaction but that can create an even more polarized political climate than we are already facing. If people only get their news content from one source that is constantly pushing the same agenda and is not opening people’s eyes to different viewpoints (challenge their perspective), then we are moving towards a much more challenging political environment than we have seen in the past.
I would put more pressure on these news media sources to regulate and put forth a variety of content in the hopes that people can take in other perspectives and positively see where they differ. The authors discuss a lot about either pulling all the fake news that is found online or just pushing more content of accurate news and I feel like that is the easier way to go about this issue.
Produce more accurate content daily from all perspective — while keeping some regulation — and our society might be more open to other peoples perspectives and values.
We create a toxic political environment because no one is capable of compromise and seeing others perspectives which social media has allowed for. There is so much fake news and overbearing content that is constantly being sent into millions of daily feeds online and companies need to be held accountable for sharing all viewpoints and taking down those that are false or cruel.
One of the closing questions in Landemore’s chapter was whether Citizenbook should be a not-for profit company, and I found this question leading into the conclusion interesting since the organizational paradigm of whatever entity would give rise to Citizenbook would have an overwhelming influence upon what the final product looks like and how it serves the public interest. Obviously with problems of funding, having Citizenbook run by a not-for-profit or governmental agency could mean jeopardizing the financial viability of the platform. The alternative to running the risk of not having enough funding is a never-ending battle between legislators and the private corporation to reign in the platform from behaving in a socially irresponsible manner as we have observed to some extent from every social network so far.
The Bernholz chapter chronologically comments on the imperativeness of Citizenbook avoiding a for-profit structure in its exploration of how non-profit organizations have shown up many times in the work of reaping data for the public good despite the expensive and challenging legal hurdles that they face. The brief discussion of the Open Collective as a novel funding and organizational model for open-source action was interesting but was lacking an avenue of exploration that I anticipated following the statement, “It is designed as a way to let groups raise, track, and share money for their collective action without having to establish a new, hierarchical nonprofit organization for each such project.” The collective model is non-hierarchical and more democratic in its decision making among the participating minds. This seems conducive to the democratic nature of Citizenbook and although the two chapters are obviously not connected in this way, the larger goal of data regulation still concerns itself with democracy and advocating for worker-cooperative models of organization would instill democracy both in the development and use of the platform.
Landemore, Cohen and Fung argue for different reforms to better support democracy. Cohen and Fung propose a “stronger marriage of broad participation and public discussion” by increasing the production and spread of high-quality information while fostering “democratic orientation” through government regulation of big tech and online platform design (25, 47-48, 49). Landemore argues for using digital technology to better integrate the “deliberations of the decision makers and the citizenry” using digital open minipublics, “randomly appointed small groups deliberating independently, with their inputs aggregated” (80, 81).
I believe a combination of the approaches is necessary to address both the “loss of information between the deliberations of citizens and the decision-making moment” and the lack of a culture of participation in democracy (81). Much of the apathy from non-voters stem from a “sense of disengagement” because they believe that their voices do not matter – this may be combatted with a system that ensures citizen will is central to decision-making, such as through Landemore’s open democratic system. Additionally, a culture of democratic participation can be created by reducing barriers to participation, such as ensuring that a diversity of views is accessible online, encouraging a “commitment to the common good”, and having internet companies encourage users’ digital literacy through design choices (48-49, 51, 50).
Finally, civic participation is still unpaid work – a commitment to democratic participation can be encourage through compensation, as Landemore suggests. This strategy may succeed since studies have shown that financial incentives to exercise, an activity like democratic participation in that it should be done without incentive due to its inherent benefits, can produce significant increase in exercise levels [2].
Through regulation of online platforms to encourage democratic participation and restructuring the democratic process to better account for citizen views, technology can be used to improve the current democratic process.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/12/15/945031391/poll-despite-record-turnout-80-million-americans-didnt-vote-heres-why
[2] https://globalnews.ca/news/5366897/exercise-money-incentive-reward/
Chapter 1 describes that a truthful, productive environment for democratic deliberation should have participants with “epistemic humility,” “a commitment to the common good” and to learning about other people and perspectives (51). I agree in theory with these topics. However, what’s the process of putting these qualities into practice? Especially when some are still learning to adopt this mindset, while others have not or are not willing to do so?
Some communities, particularly marginalized ones, may not have the energy to but still have to bear the brunt of adopting this mindset, unfairly. For example, in the discourse of the spa shootings, where several Asians were killed and the event became a discussion around anti-Asian sentiment, I noticed people dramatically mischaracterizing the event or its significance, often in a way that made the left seem overly apocalyptic or radical. These mischaracterizations convinced many people, and I wished that the mischaracterization could be fixed. But how could we fix popular perception? It certainly wouldn’t come from the mischaracterizers suddenly changing their mind. So perhaps it could only be from people more sympathetic to the cause, which in this case was a population with disproportionately Asian populations, who perhaps faced trauma or simple exhaustion from having to explain themselves over and over again, and who had no responsibility or fault in the mischaracterization itself. It would be emotionally exhausting, unfair, and it would feel pointless to be the understanding one in a situation where the other party is not.
Although grassroots change is always nice, perhaps the burden of changing mass public opinion falls on our systems themselves – like the education system or media. A more understanding society is a more collaborative and productive one, and those already with the power to instantly reach people have the best tools to power this movement.
Landemore’s criticism of the election system and following suggestion for an open democracy, one based on the field of statistics and its theory of representation using random sampling is a creative, interesting, and in the present era, unusual interpretation, one that might be too avant-garde for many.
Landemore does something that many philosophers do– attempt to answer important, relevant, and pressing questions, often by approaching a problem from several angles. Rather than waste time and energy deciding how to perfect existing democracies through slow shifts, Landemore steps back and reassesses, trying to understand what people truly wish for when they argue for democracy and its variants. Landemore’s insight is profound. What proponents of democracy care about is not for the system itself. Democracy just happens to be an appealing option because it provides something we value: effective representation of a diversity of opinions and interests.
Landemore asserts that we can achieve representation without using a traditional Habermasian electoral democracy. Instead, Landemore envisions a new system to achieve effective representation facilitated by current technology and using random sampling.
Rather than wasting time, energy, and effort squabbling over existing weaknesses of an electoral democracy- gerrymandering, electoral college, first past the post… Open democracy as proposed by Landemore might be able to address many of these issues by doing away with the system that originates them.
However, I wonder where it might be possible to feasibly and ethically realize open democracy. There is a fraught history of Western involvement in regime change, and repeating such injustice should be avoided. American-led experiments in government tend to have dire, real consequences should anything go awry for the people ruled by the installed government. Perhaps we could implement open democracy in our university’s microcosms, in student organizations and student government, where the stakes might be lower…
References:
Bernholz, L., Landemore Hélène, & Reich, R. (2021). Open Democracy and Digital Technologies. In Digital Technology and democratic theory (pp. 62–89). essay, The University of Chicago Press.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, November 24). United States involvement in regime change. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 26, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change.
YouTube. (2011). YouTube. Retrieved November 26, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo.