Alberto Ibargüen

[Commentary] A few weeks ago, representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter came to town to testify before Congress. But let’s look beyond the narrow scope of those hearings and explore a broader conceptual issue, a massive and thorny topic: the role and responsibility of technology companies that began as platforms and transformed, I believe, into publishers. These are two very different things, with different roles in society. Are they merely platforms and tech companies, or are they publishers with social and legal responsibility for what they publish?

[Commentary] While a majority of Americans are spending more time consuming news on social media platforms, the leaders of these companies have until recently declined to accept their role as the most important publishers of our time. They have shown scant interest in judging wheat from chaff while chasing market share. The good news is that’s changing, and Zuckerberg is leading the way. He and others in Silicon Valley would be well served by turning to Jack Knight’s core values for guidance. In our digital age, it may seem counterintuitive to look to a man who had ink in his veins for advice. But the basic principles about the role of information and the media in our democracy that Knight embraced remain critically important:
First: get the business model right.
Second, the product has to be demonstrably true to be believed. Knight wrote, simply, “get the truth and print it.”
Third, use technology to engage the reader.

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

[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]