The Platform

Public-friendly digital spaces don’t just happen, they are intentionally built.

Public Spaces aims to inspire and connect designers and technologists to build more flourishing digital public spaces.

We believe in reimagining the social internet as an integrated network of public spaces, rather than a plethora of silos, filter bubbles, and gated communities constantly at war.

We started when we asked ourselves what healthy communities need from digital spaces — not just in terms of protection and security, but in terms of positive incentives and the public goods they provide.

We have gone back to the roots of the internet, and studied all of the impossible and unexpected systems and models that have come to thrive online – such as Google Search, Wikipedia, StackOverflow, Bitcoin, Patreon, Substack – to understand what brings people together in shared consensus and confluence. We tried to distill the common characteristics that are shared by the spaces that most accurately reflect the civility and kindness we experience in the real world, where people seem perfectly capable of agreeing – or agreeing to disagree – with dignity, grace, and dare we say it, love.

We think this matters both because these ideas should inform our understanding of the flaws and failures of existing digital platforms, but also perhaps more importantly because they could help inspire and shape the design of new systems of social epistemology – in other words the means by which people agree, come to consensus, and ultimately create knowledge that is outside the scope of objective science or our subjective experiences.

Our proposal for a paradigm shift in social media is based upon:

  • Subject-matter authorities
  • Reputation, and peer-verification
  • A novel privacy model
  • A humane business model

We invite you to join us in this effort – because it’s going to take all of us – to move beyond the behavioral paradigm of social technology and engagement for its own sake that is based upon revealed preferences; we are striving to move towards a framework for listening to stated goals and purposes, that prioritizes active intents and ultimately collective fulfillment.