Why Social Media Failed and How to Build a Better Digital Public Square

From digital revolution to anarchic thunderdome: why social media failed and why we need a new architecture for the internet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpnFtkfPr04

Remember the euphoria surrounding social media fifteen years ago? Campaign strategists like Joe Trippi spoke of a revolution that would overthrow unresponsive political systems and remake politics beyond national borders. That was the dream. But as we all know, things went wrong. To understand why the dream curdled into a "hellscape" of tribalism and why social media failed, we need to look at a simple but powerful idea from economics: the distinction between private and public goods.

The Hidden Architecture of Our Lives: Public vs. Private Goods

In the market, we are used to private goods. If you buy a car or a phone, it belongs to you. However, those private goods are useless without public goods. A car needs a road to drive on, and a phone needs a network to connect to. These are shared resources that benefit everyone.

This entanglement of the private and the shared isn't just about physical infrastructure; it governs all social interactions. Think of a game of tennis. Each player has a private desire to win, but the game only functions because both players share an interest in a properly governed game with agreed-upon rules. The same logic applies to a conversation. We might speak to impress the person we’re talking to, or to ask them for help (private interest), but we rely on shared rules of conversation and a shared language (public good) to make sense to one another.

How the Profit Motive Broke Our Culture

The internet is a classic public good, connecting millions of private pursuits to a vast, shared global network. When platforms like Facebook and Twitter emerged, they functioned as public goods too. They were free for all and connected everyone.

However, there is another type of public good at play: our shared culture. Much like road rules, our culture shapes how we interact and what we expect from each other. This is where the wheels fell off.

Social media firms, in their hunger for profit, prioritised "eyeballs" and engagement above all else. They discovered that the easiest way to keep people clicking was to foster self-righteous tribalism. In economic terms, the private good (profit) flourished, while the social public good (a healthy culture governing our conversations) collapsed. Without rules or shared norms, social media became an anarchic "Thunderdome".

Finding Our Better Angels: The Wikipedia Example

Can we have high-speed global connectivity without the constant vitriol? The answer is a resounding yes, and the proof has been hiding in plain sight: Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is every bit as hyperconnected as social media. Its radical openness should, in theory, lead to absolute chaos. Yet, it produced a functional, global, free encyclopedia. It succeeded because it built an online culture that was actually fit for purpose (a concept I will explore in depth in my next piece).

As Abraham Lincoln once suggested, we need institutions that do not amplify our worst instincts, but instead bring out the "better angels of our nature". We don't need less technology; we need more technological imagination to build digital spaces that protect our shared social goods.