Social media currently rewards outrage over reason, functioning as a profit-driven "shoutocracy" that fuels online division. What if we could fix our digital public square using the same principles of governance that make Wikipedia generally reliable?

In this video, I explore the stark contrast between Wikipedia's structured meritocracy and the chaotic nature of modern platforms. While Wikipedia’s genius was focusing on the NPOV - the Neutral Point of View as the way its many participants converge on a common standard. It’s inherently harder on social media. That’s because so much discussion on social media isn’t just about what is the case but how society ought to be. It’s harder to get people to converge on better rather than worse responses to that question. But Wikipedia gives us some clues. I think the answer lies in bridging algorithms, tools designed to amplify voices that earn respect even from their ideological opponents.

Because bridging societal divides doesn’t generally maximise profit, I argue that cultural institutions, public broadcasters, and universities must take the lead. By pioneering pro-social networks, we can rebuild the vital "middleware" of our democracy. This video examines how prioritising collective sense-making over rage could fundamentally transform our algorithms and our future.

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🎙️ Listen to the “Talking it Through” episode where I talk more about these ideas on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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By every rule of logic, giving a global army of volunteers the power to write an encyclopaedia should have resulted in total chaos. Yet, the miracle of the early internet was that it didn't. In this video, I argue that while we are mesmerised by the radical openness of platforms like Wikipedia, we are missing the invisible architecture that actually makes them work. I call this the 'middleware' of peer production.

We explore how successful open-source projects are not the democratic free-for-alls we imagine, but exacting meritocracies often ruled by 'benevolent dictators'. By ignoring this hidden structure, we fail to understand why modern social media has become a toxic mix of confusion and rage. We look at how the right kind of gatekeepers are essential to align individual actions with shared purposes, offering us the only real clue on how to fix our broken digital conversations. And it’s all leading up to an even bigger question we ask in the next video. What is the middleware of democracy and how can we build it?

▶ Enjoy the next episode on ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ or Spotify next week

📽️ Find this video on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🎙️ Listen to the “Talking it Through” episode where I talk more about these ideas on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

👉 Join the conversation on my ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord server

Do you remember the early euphoria surrounding social media? We were promised a revolution that would remake politics and overthrow corrupt systems. Instead, we seem to have ended up in a digital Thunderdome.

In this video, I use a fundamental idea from economics to understand exactly what went wrong: the distinction between public and private goods. Just as a game of tennis requires shared rules to function, a shared online culture is the operating system of our online discourse. But culture is a public good. And in building that good the tech giants put private profit ahead of public good, fostering tribalism rather than meaningful connection.

However, the internet does not have to be a hellscape. By contrasting the chaos of social media with the surprising stability of Wikipedia, we can begin to see how to design institutions that amplify the better angels of our nature rather than our worst instincts. And that sets us up to ask the next question. What is Wikipedia’s online culture, and why does it work so much better - a subject we take up in our next video.

▶ Enjoy the next episode on ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ or Spotify next week

📽️ Find this video on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🎙️ Listen to the “Talking it Through” episode where I talk more about these ideas on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠or ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠

👉 Join the conversation on my ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord server