When he jokes With joining Twitter’s board or buying the company outright this week, Elon Musk tweeted a bunch of ideas for the platform, from a new pledge on “freedom of speech” to an edit button for social media posts. tweets. The wave of users rushes in, knowing full well that any changes will be made at home. But what if ordinary Twitter users had real power in these decisions? Instead of just liking and retweeting, what if they could suggest and vote on policies that affect their online experience?
Twitter’s ownership problem started long before Musk had a plot. The conversations and communities that Twitter hosts have always been a legally bought and sold commodity. The prospect of handing this piece of essential democratic infrastructure to the world’s richest man is a symptom of that basic design.
Musk’s stated intention administering Twitter on behalf of democracy and free speech is familiar. In 2018 he promised audience at South by Southwest that there will be direct democracy in his colonies on Mars — even as he is hindering unionization among Tesla workers. And in 2020, as the pandemic began, he forced Tesla production to resume in Fremont, California, against the recommendations of local health officials, leading to infections. Giving absolute power to one person is never a good way to get more democracy.
In 2016, our concern about Twitter’s vulnerability prompted us to organize Buy Twitter, a campaign that kicks in when the company faces another acquisition threat — possibly by Salesforce, possibly by Disney. With many collaborators and shareholders, we formally recommend the company to study options for transition to user ownership so that it can be a democracy in itself. User juries can research and develop policies for larger groups to vote on. For example, perhaps users will be able to debate and decide on censorship policies, and focus people who have been harmed on the platform in decisions about how to prevent it in the future. Perhaps building a healthy public space will become a priority for executives over raising stock prices.
“It makes perfect sense,” say WIRED at that time! We have pointed to examples of widespread ownership and accountability such as the Associated Press, a global nonprofit owned by the thousands of news organizations it serves, and the Green Bay Packers. , a beloved football team owned by fans. After a media frenzy, our campaign culminated with a vote at Twitter’s 2017 shareholder meeting. Nearly 5% of all shares on Twitter voted for us — not a victory but an early confirmation of an idea that has continued to spread ever since.
No tech company as big and established as Twitter turns around and becomes user-owned. But as the years have passed, more and more hopeful signs of democratically owned technology have emerged. Twitter itself might even have followed our suggestion, at least a little bit. In 2019, then CEO Jack Dorsey announced Bluesky, a project “to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.” This can allow a network to have multiple forms of ownership and control, rather than a single company.
Startups face great financial and cultural pressure to “quit” either by being acquired by a larger company or listed on a stock exchange. These pressures lead to many of the deadliest threats that technology poses to today’s society, as they pursue investor returns at all costs. Better startups need better options. Since ours #BuyTwitter campaignWe have developed a playbook for “exit the community“With diverse startup founders who want to ensure long-term benefits for users and employees. With start-up social network Zebra unityin 2020, we co-hosted with two dozen founders to expand the playbook, and since then we’ve talked to nearly 100 companies, from artist-centric streaming platforms to artists. mental health services, all of which explore techniques for transitioning to community control.
