How to save social media

When social media is at its best, we get genuine human connection, built-in audiences, and exciting avenues for creativity and exchange. But our current social platforms are built on a surveillance model, where our data is used to predict our behavior, show us ads, and train the algorithms that keep us perpetually on the platform. It’s time to explore a new vision for social media, where we don’t have to give up on privacy in order to connect.

In this episode, Raffi Krikorian, Chief Technology Officer of Emerson Collective, talks to prominent critics of existing social media — and the people actively reimagining it, with truly private messaging, hyperlocal communities, and renewed sense of control over our own social data. Guests include Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, whose 2021 leaks made national news and put the social media giant in the Congressional spotlight; scholar and internet activist Ethan Zuckerman; President of the Signal Foundation Meredith Whittaker; Flipboard co-founder Mike McCue, and Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain.