A Pluralist Approach to Democratizing Online Discourse

TL;DR

This paper proposes a pluralist approach to democratize online discourse by addressing both systemic and user-centric issues, aiming to improve transparency and accountability in online platforms.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, comprehensive framework that combines system-level decentralization with user-focused design to enhance online discourse democratization.

Findings

Highlights the limitations of current censorship and moderation practices.

Proposes a multi-faceted approach integrating technical and user-centered solutions.

Emphasizes the importance of transparency and accountability mechanisms.

Abstract

Online discourse takes place in corporate-controlled spaces thought by users to be public realms. These platforms in name enable free speech but in practice implement varying degrees of censorship either by government edict or by uneven and unseen corporate policy. This kind of censorship has no countervailing accountability mechanism, and as such platform owners, moderators, and algorithms shape public discourse without recourse or transparency. Systems research has explored approaches to decentralizing or democratizing Internet infrastructure for decades. In parallel, the Internet censorship literature is replete with efforts to measure and overcome online censorship. However, in the course of designing specialized open-source platforms and tools, projects generally neglect the needs of supportive but uninvolved `average' users. In this paper, we propose a pluralistic approach to democratizing online discourse that considers both the systems-related and user-facing issues as first-order design goals.