Ideas worth spreading

What obligation do social media platforms have to the greater good?

2,082,876 views | Eli Pariser • TEDSummit 2019

Social media has become our new home. Can we build it better? Taking design cues from urban planners and social scientists, technologist Eli Pariser shows how the problems we're encountering on digital platforms aren't all that new -- and shares how, by following the model of thriving towns and cities, we can create trustworthy online communities.

Social media has become our new home. Can we build it better? Taking design cues from urban planners and social scientists, technologist Eli Pariser shows how the problems we're encountering on digital platforms aren't all that new -- and shares how, by following the model of thriving towns and cities, we can create trustworthy online communities.

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Follow Civic Signals on Twitter and tweet your favorite physical public spaces using #civicsignals and #publicfriendly.

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Learn more about the latest research on public-friendly digital spaces at the Center for Media Engagement.

About the speaker

Eli Pariser

Online democracy advocate

See speaker profile

As a cofounder of Upworthy, and the author of "The Filter Bubble," Eli Pariser leverages technology to help build better and more democratic societies.

William H. Whyte | Project for Public Spaces, 2001 | Book

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces

Whyte, who was one of Jane Jacobs's editors, set up cameras around New York City in the 1970s and recorded the uses of public spaces to decode which spaces worked and which ones didn't. This book is full of acute, thought-provoking observations — as well as “scores” of how different spaces fill and empty over the course of the day.

Joe Edelman | Medium, 2016 | Article

"Is anything worth maximizing?"

Edelman is a philosopher of contemporary technology, and he makes a compelling argument here about why metric maximization is inherently dangerous — and how we might organize social systems instead.

Great London Authority, 2018 | Article

"All of us: The mayor's strategy for social integration"

Few cities have done deeper work to determine how to public spaces might genuinely serve the public. This report has a clear-eyed diagnosis of the problem and a wealth of practical solutions that are useful as a jumping off point for thinking about digital spaces as well.

Ethan Zuckerman | ethanzuckerman.com, 2018 | Article

"Six or Seven Things Social Media Can Do For Democracy"

A simple, clear framework for thinking through what social media can and should offer democracy. As the leader of the Civic Media group at MIT, few have had more practical experience at that intersection than Zuckerman.

| Explore

Design Justice Network

A movement to bring marginalized people to the center of the design conversation and imagine the design of better communities.

Jennifer Gardner, et al. | Gehl Institute, 2018 | Article

"Inclusive Healthy Places: A Guide to Inclusion & Health in Public Space: Learning Globally to Transform Locally"

Produced by the Gehl Institute, this report offers a concrete, thoughtful framework for thinking about how urban spaces could be more equitable and just.

Civic Signals, 2019 | Explore

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Follow Civic Signals on Twitter and tweet your favorite physical public spaces using #civicsignals and #publicfriendly.

Join the Civic Signals community.

Learn more about the latest research on public-friendly digital spaces at the Center for Media Engagement.