How Information Fuels the Power of our Democracy

[Commentary] We started this conference 10 years ago...and look where we are:
First, the internet continues to hold small “d” democratic promise like nothing else in history.
Technology continues to astonish in the ways it makes possible previously unthinkable ways of communicating.
Third, trust has evaporated. Trust in institutions and in each other. The traditional channels of intermediation have evaporated or weakened. Since the middle has shrunk and internet facilitates finding backup for any point of view, it helps confirm bias and polarizes.
Fourth, the programs we use to discover this information are not neutral. What we know or think we know is increasingly determined by algorithms controlled by a handful of tech companies whose relationship to government is evolving and whose commitment to free expression is uneven.

It is time for a new national conversation and new solutions. The pace of disruption will not slow down and is moving too quickly for a fixed model, we’ll remain agnostic, trying different ways but based always on our belief in free expression, citizen engagement and inclusive societies.

[Alberto Ibarguen is the president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation]