Chris Howard, Decentralizing the Digital Public Sphere скачать в хорошем качестве

Chris Howard, Decentralizing the Digital Public Sphere

The public sphere is currently dominated by a handful of social media platforms—for example, X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit—all built on centralized networks. Centralized networks concentrate decision-making and infrastructure in a single entity that manages user identity, data storage, policy enforcement, and content curation. This concentration of control grants platforms enormous power over online communication and public discourse. Yet these platforms are operated by unelected actors accountable primarily to shareholders rather than the public. I argue that operators of platforms built on centralized networks can’t legitimately exercise power over the public sphere. By contrast, platforms built on decentralized networks—which distribute control over identity, data, and policy across independent nodes interoperating through open protocols—can in principle exercise their power legitimately. The upshot is that legitimate platform governance requires migrating to decentralized architectures.