CSPP Seminar: Reimagining Social Media

September 29, 2021

12:00-1:30pm ET

702 Cabot

Speaker: Ethan Zuckerman, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Information and Communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Director, Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure

Host:

Abstract

The power of social media to affect politics, social change and even to provoke violence has become increasingly clear in the last few years. As we consider the power of social media and its many problems, many are proposing regulations of online speech by governments or demanding platforms take more responsibility for speech they host. This talk explores a different alternative: what if, instead of fixing existing social media platforms, we imagined and built social media designed to help us become better friends, neighbors and citizens? While such a project sounds impossibly idealistic, it’s well underway, and may change the social media landscape more quickly than we would expect.

To attend, register at joshua.anderson@tufts.edu.