Reclaiming the information space

Since I wrote my reflection on whether to stay or leave mainstream social media platforms, a number of events have added a new urgency. I hardly need to list them here. One image for all: the spectacle of the richest men on earth hailing the new emperor — rewarded for their loyalty and celebrating the definitive capture of a government which will now unashamedly work for them at the expense of everyone else.

While several researchers and activists saw this coming, it is now beyond anyone's doubt that we have reached a point of no return in the crisis affecting democracy, and specifically our collective information spaces. The question I asked at the end of my last post was: if we are to leave X, Facebook, etc., but want to still be able to connect and participate in public debate, where can we go? Many people are moving to alternative platforms — I list a few of the available options below. But before I do that I feel the need to ask a bigger question.

Can information spaces be redesigned in the public interest?

In his powerful analysis in "The Space of the World" Nick Couldry (Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics) argues that humanity made a critical error by entrusting the design and management of our social interactions to profit-driven businesses, particularly digital platforms. These platforms, far from being neutral tools, actively shape how meaning circulates, influencing social relations and amplifying existing societal issues, from online harassment to political polarisation.

“By spaces... I mean the highly artificial spaces, built through computer software and hardware, that today, in effect, regulate what interactions count as social and how meaning circulates through those interactions – to whom, in what sequence, over what distance and at what speed. We call those spaces ‘platforms’.” [[1]]

Couldry calls for a fundamental redesign of these spaces, advocating for a shift away from profit maximisation towards principles that prioritise well-being and collective action, particularly in tackling crucial issues like climate change which require increased social solidarity.

According to this view, the answer to my question “How can we create and sustain open, citizen-first social spaces online?" is: we need a fundamental redesign of these spaces, alongside a reappraisal of our own role as citizens in setting priorities and rules of engagement. The information space is not just the internet, digital ecosystems, cyberspace or the metaverse. It predates them, and has changed throughout history with every new communication technology that was introduced: newspapers, books, telegraphs, cinema, radio and television, each enabling people to communicate across longer distances. But what happened in the last thirty years is more radical. Couldry explains that there are two new elements that make these recent changes in information space more fundamental:

“First, the increasing saturation of physical and social space everywhere with new types of information flows: content circulated not just by media institutions but by all of us. Second, the design of new ways of interacting with this vast information universe and, through it, with everyone else (interactive platforms, apps, search engines).” [[2]]

Crucially, he notes that it is not humanity as a whole that designed this space, but "some very specific elites, almost all in rich countries". Instead of managing the risks associated with connecting every piece of information and every person on the planet, online gateways prioritised profit.

Social media supercharged the tools of propaganda and the manufacture of consent to unprecedented levels, resulting in the ability of billionaires and their corporations — disposing of immense financial resources — to design, build, acquire and control the information space of billions of people. Platform owners can apply their huge power and influence to help elect their preferred candidates: those willing, when in power, to dismantle the institutions dedicated to maintaining the rule of law in the public interest.

Considering the critical role of media in human societies, our root imperative must be to build a viable public interest environment. As technologist Robin Berjon put it, the goal is to recapture digital infrastructure in the public interest.[[3]] That's the vision. It's a worthy cause, a challenge of epic proportions, and a long-term pursuit. How may we devise a strategy?

Writer and activist Cory Doctorow wrote:

“The only way to truly billionaire-proof the internet is to a) abolish billionaires and b) abolish the system that allows people to become billionaires. Short of that, any levees we build will need constant tending, reinforcement, and re-evaluation.”[[4]]

It has been noted that the impossible will take a little while.[[5]] The explosive combination of nearly unlimited capital and unfettered power feels overwhelming. But we do have levers. Resistance is possible and it is necessary. It starts with understanding how the system works and how it can be changed.

The Propaganda Model, in overdrive

First introduced by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in 1988, the propaganda model offers a systematic framework for understanding how mass media serves power in democratic societies.[[6]] The model identifies five filters through which to analyse the way media facilitate the 'manufacture’ of consent: ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak, and dominant ideology. Initially developed to analyse traditional broadcast and print media, its core insights are proving remarkably pertinent when applied to today's all-digital media landscape.

Far from democratising media, as many hoped, the internet revolution has intensified the dynamics identified in the model. Social media platforms and streaming services have created new forms of ownership concentration, with tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon wielding unprecedented control over information flows. The advertising filter has evolved into sophisticated systems of surveillance capitalism, where user data drives targeted content delivery. While social media, in theory, enabled everyone to have a voice, its current incarnation gives the owners of the dominant platforms near absolute power over filtering, selection and algorithmic promotion of messages.

Those who think they can exercise any form of control on mainstream social media feeds are deluding themselves: our attention is captured and monetised, our voices are buried under a cacophony of chatter, distracting at best, and increasingly toxic, manipulative and dangerous at worst.

The model's insights about systemic bias have gained new relevance in the era of platform capitalism. The five filters now operate through algorithmic content moderation, recommendation systems, and engagement metrics that privilege certain voices and viewpoints while marginalising others. Flak manifests in coordinated harassment campaigns and algorithmic demonetisation.[[7]] Dominant ideology has shifted from anti-communism to market and techno fundamentalism.[[8]]

The enduring relevance of the propaganda model suggests that any serious analysis of contemporary media must expose how traditional forms of media power interact with new digital dynamics, empowering those who control the "space of all our interactions", to use Couldry's term, to shape public discourse in ways that serve existing power structures while maintaining the appearance of openness and diversity.

Move fast and break the guardrails

That brings us to the present day, when the billionaire owners of these spaces are stepping up to seize control of the controllers. This is not a new phenomenon, it has been happening for a long time through persistent lobbying and political financing under both democratic and republican administrations in the US — or social-democratic, liberal and conservative ones in Europe. What appears to be different with the return of Donald Trump to the White House is the confidence of doing it so openly and brazenly, with no regard for diplomacy and international relations. The bullies took over the asylum. They move fast and break things that constrain their power.

Since platforms have global reach, the US techno-authoritarian oligarchy (or MAGA Tech-bros, Broligarchs, Techno-feudal lords etc.) are directly attacking foreign governments and institutions, in Europe and beyond. All of them: Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and so on, not just Elon Musk. The possibility of foreign lawmakers empowered to limit their capacity to dominate markets, extract value and manufacture consent anywhere must seem intolerable.[[9]]

Their crucial contribution to the election(s) of Donald Trump may indeed be replicated in other countries. This already happened in 2016, as later proved by the Cambridge Analytica scandal.[[10]]
Elon Musk's recent and very public support for far-right governments and parties makes total sense when seen in this light. Parties like AFD, Reform, RN, FdI etc. represent the best candidates to run governments more inclined to dismantle civic institutions in order to favour the oligarchs' business interests.

In 1990s Italy Berlusconi seized and consolidated power (which he managed to hold for over two decades) through a similar combination of media influence and far-right enablement. His dominance of the Italian media and political landscape paved the way for the current government, led by Giorgia Meloni — the only European leader to attend Trump's inauguration.[[11]] This month Bloomberg revealed that the Italian government is negotiating a €1.5Bn deal with Musk’s SpaceX to supply of a secure telecommunications system for governmental and military use.[[12]]

Techno Rebellion

Cory Doctorow famously coined the term enshittification, which he describes as a tragedy in three acts: One: be good to users while locking them in. Two: screw the users a little so you can be good to business customers while locking them in. Three: screw everybody and take all the value for yourself. In the excellent speech "Disenshittify or die!" he explains with clarity and passion what levers we can use to resist the techno-autocratic takeover of our lives.[[13]]

We stay on services like X or Facebook because our friends are there, and they stay because we are there. This is known as “network effects”, and the “collective action problem." We know that social media platforms abuse our privacy and are bad for our mental health, but we cannot agree on when to leave or where to go next. But accepting lock-in enables further degradation of services and the pollution of the information space. Facebook bootstrapped its growth by providing an easy way for people to switch from MySpace. Users should support efforts to restore competition, regulation, interoperability and worker power to rebuild the “good”, public interest internet.

Doctorow observes that tech company leaders haven't fundamentally changed — they've always wanted to maximise profits while minimising costs and value delivered to users. What changed was the removal of four key constraints that previously prevented them from fully enshittifying their products and services.

1. Competition keeps companies honest. If a product degrades, customers can move elsewhere. This constraint has been neutralised through 40 years of lax antitrust enforcement encouraging monopolistic consolidation.
2. Government oversight and regulations are necessary to protect consumers. As companies get "too big to fail" they can outspend regulators and become "too big to jail".
3. Interoperability gives users' the ability to switch and be free to choose the best technologies and solutions on the market. This has been severely limited by IP laws and terms of service restrictions.
4. Worker Power. Tech workers historically had leverage due to labour scarcity, but their power has been weakened by mass layoffs (~400,000 in the last two years).

In a democracy the most effective line of defence people have against corporate greed and malpractice is the law: regulatory frameworks devised by democratically elected legislators and enforced by independent judiciary institutions. Unsurprisingly, the latter are often the targets of vicious attacks by wannabe autocrats.[[14]]

So it is essential to demand that democratic institutions act in the interest of their citizens rather than all-powerful corporations. They can do so through renewed antitrust enforcement, new regulations like the EU's Digital Markets Act, right-to-repair laws, and support for tech worker unionisation.

Enforcing antitrust laws, a duty increasingly neglected by every US administrations since Ronald Regan, is necessary to ensure fair competition. What we call Big Tech today is the result of the massive consolidation of power in a handful of corporations who were allowed, even encouraged, to build monopolies and stifle competitive innovation at the expense of users and society.

Doctorow contends that effective regulation is not only possible but essential for economic fairness and technological innovation. He notes that the globalised nature of tech platforms presents an upside for regulators. Regulators can collaborate across borders and use successful cases as templates for enforcement in other regions. For example, the European Commission's successful antitrust actions against Apple inspired similar initiatives in countries including Japan and South Korea. Countries in the Global South, such as Nigeria, could leverage existing cases and evidence to challenge big tech firms. This approach would allow these countries to reclaim wealth extracted from their economies and foster indigenous tech sectors. This could be transformative for local economies and tech ecosystems in developing regions. Regulation can also generate significant financial returns for governments, which can be reinvested into public goods.[[15]]

Promoting interoperability can reduce Big Tech's dominance. Measures that allow users to migrate without losing their connections and data would make it easier for competitors to enter the market. It would mitigate the drive to enshittification, as frustrated customers could choose competitors offering a better service.

Reclaiming the information commons

There are several things we can do to help change the status quo. Let's remember that social media did not even exist twenty years ago. Given a chance, there are plenty of good people who can build better alternatives today. I see three ways people can start reclaiming the digital commons, all of them useful and complementing each other.

Citizen action

Demand regulatory frameworks that protect and empower citizens, rather than plutocrats and corporations. Mobilise accordingly. Support governments and institutions who will stand up to predatory business and put in place the four constraints. Keep fighting misinformation and holding Big Tech to account. Join forces with other workers and users to reclaim the public space.

Neo's choice

Take the red pill — educate yourself, master media literacy. Take control of your digital self. Own and protect your data. What you create on commercial platforms creates values for their owners, not for you or anyone else. Wherever you decide to go, stay awake. Join the resistance.

Hacker's way

Free yourself from the grips of billionaire platforms, it's not that hard. You do not need to learn to code — there are plenty of free, open-source tools which are better than Facebook, Instagram or X. But you need to learn the difference. The backbone of the internet is open-source, non-profit, and decentralised. If you are a 'creator', get off Substack and Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (POSSE).

In practice

It is important to understand the distinction between protocols and platforms. A protocol ensures interoperability between platforms and services. Most people use an open protocol-based service daily: email. It does not matter who your provider is, you can exchange email with anyone because all services use the same protocols.[[16]]

A few options to explore:

1. Join the Fediverse ecosystem. It is based on a protocol called Activity Pub. That includes Mastodon (like Twitter), Pixelfed (Instagram), PeerTube (YouTube), Friendica (Facebook), BookWyrm (Goodreads), Lemmy (Reddit) etc. More about it here.
2. Join Bluesky (instead of X or Threads), based on the AT protocol. Bluesky is VC backed, which means it may be pushed to enshittify. However, independent non-profit services and applications can be built on the same protocol, guaranteeing interoperability and the portability of data and contacts. Free Our Feeds is an initiative aiming to leverage the AT protocol to build an ecosystem of interconnected apps, with a view to guarantee interoperability and resilience from centralised control.
3. Nostr is an open protocol that enables global, decentralized, and censorship-resistant social media. Supported by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and popular with crypto communities. Damus is an iOS Twitter-like client based on the Nostr protocol.
4. Matrix is an open protocol for decentralised, secure communications. Clients like Element use matrix to provide a secure, decentralised and compliant alternative to Whatsapp, Telegram or Signal. Matrix is the underlying technology for the Rappler community, whose CEO Maria Ressa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 for her work in defence of press freedom.

Personally, I try one or more and see what works best for me. It does require a little patience and some trial and error. These tools are mostly created by individuals or non-profit groups, so they are not always as slick and robust as the mainstream platforms. The main Pixelfed server recently suspended the (very handy) Instagram import tool due to the rapid increase of new users. But these are temporary issues and tend to get quickly resolved.

There are helpful apps aggregating multiple networks. For instance Openvibe has a consolidated timeline and supports cross-posting to Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads and Nostr accounts. Typefully is a cross-posting tool which can save a lot of time if you regularly ‘syndicate’ to multiple networks (X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads and Linkedin). Unfortunately it still requires a Twitter (X) account to get started, a constraint many users are asking to remove.

[[1]]: Nick Couldry (2024), The Space of the World: Can Human Solidarity Survive Social Media and What If It Can't? United Kingdom: Polity Press. (Kindle edition, Location 367)

[[2]]: Ibid. (Location 585)

[[3]]: Robin Berjon, The Public Interest Internet

[[4]]: Cory Doctorow, Defense (of the internet) (from billionaires) in depth

[[5]]: Paul Loeb, The Impossible will take a little while

[[6]]: Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky (2006). Manufacturing Consent. United Kingdom: Vintage.

[[7]]: 'Flak' refers to negative responses, criticisms, punitive actions and forms of pressure directed at media organisations or individuals when their messaging challenges powerful interests. Seen in the historic context of the last decades, the recent crusade on so-called 'woke ideology' and related 'culture wars' are a form of flak. I shall write about this soon.

[[8]]: With the fall of the USSR anti-communism waned as an ideological priority. But that did not stop the drive to overturn the perceived progressive cultural hegemony of the post-second-world-war period — which reached its apex in the late '60s. That's also for another post.

[[9]]: Big Tech CEOs have already suggested they want Trump to pressure Europe into relaxing protections and regulations on the continent.

[[10]]: Wikipedia: Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal

[[11]]: Meloni is the leader of Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy), a direct offshoot of Mussolini's fascist movement. A remarkable achievement in a country whose post-war constitution deliberately prohibits "The reorganisation, in any form, of the dissolved fascist party".

[[12]]: Bloomberg: Italy Plans $1.6 Billion SpaceX Telecom Security Deal

[[13]]: Cory Doctorow, Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification

[[14]]: Musk rebuked after siding with Meloni on Italy's foreign migrant centres | Berlusconi launches tirade against judiciary

[[15]]: Elon Musk’s Move Into Politics: Yanis Varoufakis and Cory Doctorow on Fighting Billionaire Control

[[16]]: Email uses the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), the Post Office Protocol (POP3) and the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).