Ro Khanna makes the case for digital public space

How can we make the case for publicness in a culture that’s very used to private companies?

We need to make a case where even private companies have a sphere of public obligation and public interest. Right now social media doesn’t have that, and that is a glaring weakness because it has such an effect on democracy. Beyond that, we have to call for true public forums like PBS, but I think a better case can be made for those if they’re seen... See more

The fact that we’re even having to ask that question shows the problem: unlike in the newspaper business and in the broadcast business, social media has no separate sphere that’s divorced from profit maximization.

I would argue that what you need is a mix of the public and the private. You need more digital public spheres—both local governments could create it; nonprofits could create it.

The very fact that we are so concerned over a change in ownership of Twitter, and the impact that that may have on the digital public sphere, highlights the complete lack of regulatory oversight and the lack of any set of ethical norms that have been established for social media.

we underappreciated people’s attachment to place. We underappreciated the necessity of community. I think now we’re suffering the consequence of that with a lot of communities destroyed—many of them now feeling they don’t have a place in a modern economy, and don’t have a sense of identity.

it’s hard for Silicon Valley platform people to remember that different places have different characters and qualities

One of the advantages of a plurality of places is the sense that if America is going to be a composite nation—what Frederick Douglass said is sort of a composite of all different cultures at any given time, with all of us working in a democratic way to create it—that it works better if there are also spaces in such a democracy to allow for thicker ... See more

the amount of time people spend on Twitter and Facebook and like and share and comment is partly a function of not having any other way of having a voice in government, a sense of disaffection.