University of California Press
luminosoa.org

When was the last time you participated in an election for an online group chat or sat on a jury for a dispute about a controversial post? Platforms nudge users to tolerate nearly all-powerful admins, moderators, and “benevolent dictators for life.” In Governable Spaces, Nathan Schneider argues that the internet has been plagued by a phenomenon he calls “implicit feudalism”: a bias, both cultural and technical, for building communities as fiefdoms. The consequences have spread far beyond online spaces themselves. Feudal defaults train us to give up on our communities’ democratic potential, inclining us to be more tolerant of autocratic tech CEOs and authoritarian politicians. But online spaces could be sites of a creative, radical, and democratic renaissance. Schneider shows how the internet can learn from governance legacies of the past to become a more democratic medium, responsive and inventive unlike anything that has come before.

“A prescient analysis of how we create democratic spaces for engagement in the age of polarization. Governable Spaces is new, impeccably researched, and imaginative.” — Zizi Papacharissi, Professor of Communication and Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

“This visionary book points a way to scrapping capitalist realism for community control over our digital spaces. Nathan Schneider generously brings together disparate wisdom from abolitionists, Black feminists, and cooperative software engineers to spark our own imaginations and experiments.” — Lilly Irani, author of Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India

“From feminist theory to blockchain governance, this dizzying array of topics pulls readers out of their comfort zone and forces a novel look at very old questions.” — Ethan Zuckerman, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Communication, and Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Nathan Schneider is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he leads the Media Economies Design Lab and the master’s program in Media and Public Engagement.

When was the last time you participated in an election for an online group chat or sat on a jury for a dispute about a controversial post? Platforms nudge users to tolerate nearly all-powerful admins, moderators, and “benevolent dictators for life.” In Governable Spaces, Nathan Schneider argues that the internet has been plagued by a phenomenon he calls “implicit feudalism”: a bias, both cultural and technical, for building communities as fiefdoms. The consequences have spread far beyond online spaces themselves. Feudal defaults train us to give up on our communities’ democratic potential, inclining us to be more tolerant of autocratic tech CEOs and authoritarian politicians. But online spaces could be sites of a creative, radical, and democratic renaissance. Schneider shows how the internet can learn from governance legacies of the past to become a more democratic medium, responsive and inventive unlike anything that has come before.

  • Rimu@piefed.socialOPEnglish
    3·
    7 days ago

    From the perspective of most social-media users, content moderation is a matter of imposition, whether by remote company owners or by the more proximate volunteer administrators. The design pattern of implicit feudalism relies on power-holders who are not chosen or removable by those they govern. Rule enforcement occurs through censorship of user content or the removal of users altogether, but rules do not necessarily apply to the administrators themselves. Users can speak out or leave online spaces, but they lack the direct levers of effective voice. This contributes to the “techlash” against platform companies that spreads with every scandal of content moderation and abuse; by hoarding power, the companies have hoarded the blame.