Sam Liebeskind

It was only because I showed up and I paid attention," he said. "I looked for places to go. I looked for communities to join. I looked for ways to become visible and consistent, really committing to certain spots and certain groups, and then looking for opportunities to be useful and helpful.

Speaking towards this goal, the next lesson I’ve come to learn is that imagining the New Internet is not the same as building it. In my time around the archipelago of internet reform there have been no shortage of ambitious ideas. In the process of implementing said ideas, it was revealed time and time again that ambitiousness does not equal... See more

And yet, precisely as the platforms became more universal, they became more destructive of community. Communal in clusion relies on ex clusion: some notion of who is and is not a member of the group, and some ways of enforcing that boundary.

In this blog, I argue that a solution to this issue is not only possible, but critically important to achieve. I propose that countries should reclaim the power to set the rules and mechanisms for digital spaces where civic discourse occurs, and apply an infrastructure mindset. They should advance social technologies to strengthen people’s... See more

To me, the real promise of democracy and the promise of politics is this question of, “How do we build a world in which people don't feel like they're pawns in a game that other people are controlling?” Ultimately, that’s what organizing is about.

Open signups are a business decision. There are many ways that a platform could make it harder to get an account. Lots of real-world privileges have more steps – government IDs like passports or drivers licenses, obviously, but also financial transactions like bank accounts, car loans, or mortgages; or joining high-status organizations like social... See more