How Urban Planning Could Help Build Better Online Spaces | On the Media | WNYC Studios

How to Live in a Digital CityWhat we can learn from real-life urbanization to improve online livingBy Megan Garber and Andrea ValdezIllustration by The Atlantic. Source: Corbis / Getty.May 20, 2024 ShareSave While the vibrance, innovation, and cacophony of online life can feel completely unlike anything humanity has ever created before, its newness... See more

Rather than hold on to technostalgia for a time when it wasn’t this bad, sometimes it is worth asking what it would take to uninvent social media, so that we can chart a course for the web we want—a web that promotes democracy, knowledge, care, and equity. Otherwise, every unexplained decision by tech companies about access to information potential... See more

Many online spaces for political discussions are no better. To paraphrase Audrey Tang, Facebook is like trying to have a political discussion in a nightclub. (11) Some online spaces are far worse, involving people or bots who take a “no-holds-barred” approach to the things they say, or worse, may actively seek to incite a virtual mob to go after yo... See more

It’s tricky, because, you know, we’ve created it as these spaces that are controlled. And they’re economically, you know, managed in particular ways. Yes, the individuals are, you know, co-constructing these systems. Absolutely. But they’re doing it within an environment that has been defined for, you know, value extraction, not necessarily for ple... See more