Social Platform Ownership & Governance

Structural power isn't always a problem, for instance there is no reason to complain that a game designer will pick the rules of their imaginary world, but there is a large set of cases in which this structural power gives corporations " coercive powers like the state but (...) not subject to the kinds of democratic constraints and accountability t... See more

Infrastructural goods are strategic because of the manner in which these three properties interact. Without monopolistic tendencies, the market could correct with competition. Without the variety in downstream uses, the power of infrastructure would be narrow (and users in a narrow domain can more easily coordinate countervailing power). And withou... See more

I was distracted by a sudden recollection of all the instances I had heard the attributes of countries being used to describe the accomplishments of internet companies: the number of users of a streaming service being equated to the populations of sovereign nation-states, a company’s online-advertising revenue to the GDPs of several countries, all ... See more

When you bring together the facts that these companies operate in a largely lawless environment (the supranational environment) that offers no checks and balances, impacting more lives than the largest democracies, and with an explicitly authoritarian mode of governance (which has been the case for years but has become harder to ignore) then you ca... See more

Infrastructure is public in nature even when it isn't publicly owned and operated. However, while public actors have a key role to play, I believe that a successful digital sovereignty strategy will overall end up relying more on private and commons actors. The first role that public actors have here is to disperse power and to help coordinate the ... See more

As a simplistic starting point, the model in which public actors fund infrastructure (or the bootstrapping of infrastructure through private-sector coordination and patient capital) and private actors fund innovation in products and services on top of that infrastructure is a good one.

Fuller blames this thinning on two factors. First, extreme partnership has led to “an intense focus” on specific political outcomes, rather than developing better democratic processes. Second, large private foundations and governments are putting money into their own agendas, rather than tools to empower everyday citizens.