The 'Digital Town Square' Problem

New_ Public Invests in Local Online Spaces as Digital Civic Infrastru…

archived 11 Apr 2025 17:34:52 UTC

Creating a Flourishing Digital Public Space for Your Local Area | Notion

A how-to guide for admins and moderators of inclusive, uplifting, and public-spirited local Facebook groups, Discord servers, subreddits, and more...

Building Roundabout: A Pro-Social Platform for Local Communities

A conversation with the team behind New_ Public's Roundabout.

The Case for a Public Social Media Platform - JSTOR Daily

Artist and writer Joshua Citarella explores why corporate platforms corrode democracy—and what a postal-service-style digital commons could do differently.

Digital Spaces Directory | New_ Public

As the social media landscape changes and a new wave of digital spaces emerges, this Directory is meant to be a resource for our field — a jumping-off-point for further exploration and research for anyone who’s interested in studying, building, stewarding, or simply using digital social platforms. We hope this will inspire creative exploration, spark new collaborations, and highlight important progress.

Computational Public Space

Chapters — Intro, Communal computing, This presentation, Physicality — Globalization, Centrally-planned, Isolating, Private property, Surveillance, Consumption, Hidden — Summary, Outline

Communities are not fungible

There's a default assumption baked into how Silicon Valley builds products, and it tracks against how urban planners redesign neighbourhoods: that communities are interchangeable, and if you "lose" one, you can manufacture a replacement; that the value of a group of people who share space and history can be captured

Local Digital Spaces Are Essential Civic Infrastructure (SSIR)

With traditional community spaces underfunded and neglected, investing in the health of our online gathering places has become essential. <meta property=

Building Digital Public Spaces for Good

A Conversation with Eli Pariser, Co-Founder and Co-Director of New_ Public

skysquare (@skysquareapp.bsky.social)

Building a new, universal semantic layer for the public square, via Bluesky • Engage the public discourse in context #OpenWeb #SemanticWeb #FreedomTech

AI and the Future of Digital Public Squares

Two substantial technological advances have reshaped the public square in recent decades: first with the advent of the internet and second with the recent introduction of large language models (LLMs). LLMs offer opportunities for a paradigm shift towards more decentralized, participatory online spaces that can be used to facilitate deliberative dialogues at scale, but also create risks of exacerbating societal schisms. Here, we explore four applications of LLMs to improve digital public squares: collective dialogue systems, bridging systems, community moderation, and proof-of-humanity systems. Building on the input from over 70 civil society experts and technologists, we argue that LLMs both afford promising opportunities to shift the paradigm for conversations at scale and pose distinct risks for digital public squares. We lay out an agenda for future research and investments in AI that will strengthen digital public squares and safeguard against potential misuses of AI.

Local Lab | New_ Public

Helping local communities create flourishing digital spaces

New_ Public

We are researchers, engineers, designers, and community leaders working together to create digital public spaces where people can thrive and connect.