New_ Public
We’re a nonprofit R&D lab that’s reimagining social media. Join us in building digital public spaces that connect people, embrace pluralism, and build community. newpublic.org
- What happens after all the local news disappears and the only place to get online information becomes local Facebook Groups? As @elitan.bsky.social writes in this great @nytimes.com longread about Oakdale, CA, “Then, the militia incident happened.”
- APPLY BY MAY 31: commUNITY’s 2025 Global Gathering will be in Estoril, Portugal, from September 8–10, for networking and collaboration on the most urgent technology-related challenges affecting human rights, civil society, and journalists at local, regional, and global levels.
- In 2016, Facebook bought CrowdTangle, which helped users track how content moved around the internet. Last year, they shut it down. Tomorrow, at 12:30 PM ET, @brandonsilverman.bsky.social, former CrowdTangle CEO and a friend of New_ Public, joins a virtual conversation on social media transparency!
- At @journalismfestival.com, friend of New_ Public @werd.io gives a passionate call for newsrooms to collaborate and build software tailored to their own needs. “News doesn’t have to rely on tools owned by other people.”
- Check out New_ Public Co-director @eli.bsky.social on Judy Woodruff’s PBS series, America at a Crossroads! Judy traveled to Vermont to check out @frontporchforum.bsky.social, the useful and friendly network of digital community forums we researched last year with the Center for Media Engagement.
- We think every neighborhood and town in the US deserves a digital space every bit as prosocial and public-spirited as Front Porch Forum, and we’re doing our best to make that a reality. Want to help where you live? Learn more here: localstewards.newpublic.org
- In our research, we found that FPF consistently outperformed Nextdoor and Facebook, and almost everyone we surveyed (97%!) thought it was very valuable or somewhat valuable for their community. bsky.app/profile/newp...
- FPF doesn’t feel like other social media because it has engaged human moderators/curators, no instant replies, and no incentives for chaos and toxicity.
- A generational shift: Snapchat’s research on why legacy news outlets are losing viewership reveals that Gen Z values news from creator-led sources. projectc.beehiiv.com/p/younger-audiences-don-t-hate-news-just-how-it-s-delivered
- A wave of civic renewal is building. Let's make sure it keeps growing. 🧰 Continue supporting local civic experiments ✍️ Shifting the national narrative by featuring these local efforts 📚 Building fields of renewal in medicine, education, law, journalism and beyond
- As our own Sam Liebeskind writes, “The current set of tools available to people looking to bring their local community together online are, at best, not ideal, and at worst, actively working against their goals.”
- Read more:
- Prosocial media strategies transformed Taiwan into one of the most civically engaged and least socially polarized places in the world. Read the full essay and breakdown by Glen Weyl @glenweyl.bsky.social Audrey Tang @audreyt.org and Jacob Mchangama @mchangama.bsky.social
- Imagine an online space that combines the best of a small-town newspaper with the best of a well-run local Facebook Group.
- Want to explore creating something like this in your local area? We're looking to partner with people in a small number of local communities to launch initial pilots this summer. Learn more about our Launchpad program: localstewards.newpublic.org
- For the last couple of months, we’ve been sketching, researching, and co-designing with community leaders and members across the country as we begin to imagine what better online spaces for local communities might look like. New_ Public’s @sammy.bsky.social shares some of our working hypotheses
- We posted about a new tool called ClearSky on Friday, and its ability to help users gauge the tone of their posts. Friends of New_ Public aptly pointed out implicit bias and tone policing in this tool and encouraged us to take down the post — and we did. More on that below.
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View full threadWe'll continue to share potential interventions that work. We'll better pressure-test these tools against our own criteria for healthy digital spaces — Civic Signals.
- We'll continue to welcome convo about what works and doesn't. Thanks for flagging and holding us to a higher standard. Have more to share? Send us a DM!
- We appreciate this type of open dialogue about what works and doesn't. In fact, it's why we exist; to uplift, debate, and co-create pro-social tools that promote community and connection > isolation and hate.
- RESEARCH: Digital interventions are one of the first tools we can use to reduce antisocial behavior and promote prosocial interactions online. In this framework, the timing of an intervention is key and offers different opportunities to practice prosocial behaviors.
- The internet is not purely “good” or “evil.” There’s so much nuance in between. “Only you have the power to tip the scales, to resist the negative effects of the Internet, and to reshape your life to be the version you want to live.”
- We've started exploring the idea of building something brand-new for local communities, and we’re looking for partners: Are you a local leader who wants a positive, civic-minded digital space for where you live? Have someone else in mind? Learn more and contact us here:
- Friend of New_ Public @louisbarclay.bsky.social asks: why don't know we know what the most popular TikToks are? So he's launching PikTop, a new crowdsourced effort to figure it out, and maybe, just maybe, shame the platform into becoming a little more transparent and share the data publicly.
- Increasingly, lies are free & the truth is paywalled. Here's yet another surprising example: @taylorlorenz.bsky.social talks to investigative journalist @mirandagreen.bsky.social about free, seemingly legitimate publications sent via direct mail throughout the US, exploiting news desert gaps.
- If you missed our panel, make sure to catch the recording! We had some incredible discussion with… Melissa Bell (Chicago Public Media, Vox) Mitra Kalita (Epicenter NYC in Jackson Heights, Queens) Adam Whitaker (The Peak Weekly in Apex, NC)
- Check out digital art project “Everyday” from Friend of New_ Public @spencer.place, which “transforms participants’ movements into a visual poem capturing fleeting gestures as lasting marks of time” artlab.hyundai.com/commissions/...
- This feels like a transitional moment for the social internet. According to Zuckerberg's recent testimony, fewer people are using Meta's social apps to interact with friends and family: users are only spending 17% of their time on Facebook and 7% of their time on Instagram on friends' posts.
- The 2025 Global Gathering will be in Portugal! 3 days to collaborate and network around the most urgent tech-related challenges affecting humanity including: 🔒 Holistic digital security for journalists 👁️ Counteracting online surveillance 🧑💻 Grassroots approaches to AI Apps open now thru May 31!
- It's amazing that Bluesky, a global social media platform with millions of users, has only about 25 employees. But are decentralized platforms at a disadvantage when dealing with global institutions? Here's a deep dive into what happened when Turkey asked Bluesky to disable certain accounts.
- We love thinking about more prosocial social media, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Diana Lind, writer behind The New Urban Order, says topics like housing, transportation, and commerce could also benefit from a “prosocial lens,” which might even be the key to bridging partisan divides!
- Meet @clockwerks.bsky.social. He grew up in a town in Texas famous for six shooter fights. Now he’s joining New_ Public to reimagine local digital spaces like neighborhood groups and forums and building the internet we deserve, with community partnership.
- What does one thing have to do with the other? You decide. newpublic.substack.com/p/building-t...
- @seejenspeak.bsky.social writes about how like physical spaces, democratic digital spaces must be clearly bounded, durable and flexible to engage citizens and sustain communities. Join Jennifer & Jon Nash April 30 at 10 AM EST columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rBy35ii0QHyjYa0vhradkw
- This post from @rudyfraser.com, founder of @blacksky.app, is bursting with ideas for how communities can tailor federated social platforms to their needs and further unleash the prosocial potential embedded within the AT Protocol and Bluesky.
- Facebook's network effects make crowdsourced history projects possible, but it's the community stewards in these groups that sustain and grow them. And Meta, mainly interested in your attention, doesn't care about your project. www.fastcompany.com/91278547/loc...
- Should governments control social media? One reader thought “it’s complicated”:
- Add your voice here: psi.newpublic.org/np/question/...
- Too often media coverage of new social media platforms repeats past mistakes by rewarding awful incentives and behavior in platform design. Sure, Fizz (a new Gen Z app on colleges) has impressive engagement and e-commerce, but you're missing the actual innovation here: democratic moderation!
- Meet the fourth generation Texas rancher who wants to reinvent our online communities. @clockwerks.bsky.social came up telnetting into MUDs in the 90s, building the tools for building the internet, and helped build Vox Media into a flourishing digital media brand.
- @jwherrman.bsky.social speculates on why OpenAI might want to create a social media platform in @intelligencer.com What do you think: what does this mean for the future of how we communicate online?
- @deeptidoshi.bsky.social hones in on the value of local forums and online groups. What if they weren’t controlled by Big Tech, but re-conceptualized to be self-governed, community-led civic infrastructure? Last day to read before the piece gets paywalled!
- Read it here: ssir.org/articles/ent...
- Do you think the internet can strengthen local communities?
- Add your voice here: psi.newpublic.org/np/question/...
- At @theverge.com, @davidpierce.xyz unpacks the utter nonsense of "views" — the platform-defined metrics that determine who sees what, from TikTok to Netflix. But views aren't objective ratings: they vary wildly. www.theverge.com/social/63981...
- Who do you trust for local news? Your town's important updates might come from a TikTok mom and a spicy neighborhood Facebook group! Join us next Friday as we explore these crucial and evolving local info ecosystems with a panel of experts and practitioners.
- Kicking off today: join (m)otherboard's book club for open source legend @coralineada.bsky.social’s new book, “We Just Build Hammers: Stories from the Past, Present and Future of Responsible Tech”! m-otherboard.ghost.io/book-club-we...
- In her powerful new @ssireview.bsky.social article, New_Public Co-Director @deeptidoshi.bsky.social argues that local digital spaces — like those in neighborhood Facebook groups and email listservs — are important spaces that need reimagining and investment. She calls for four key reforms:
- 💪 Training programs for digital community stewards 🏛️ Platform designs that enable collective governance 🫂 Alternative business models prioritizing community 🧑💻 Decentralized technical infrastructure Let’s move from algorithm-driven shouting matches into vibrant civic forums.
