Dignity in the digital age involves recognizing the intrinsic worth of every person, ensuring opportunities for productive work and wealth creation for all.
Regulation of social media platforms should aim to create more diverse discursive spaces, encourage better norms of behavior, and hold platforms accountable for their role in democracy.
Deep dives
Dignity in the Digital Age
Dignity in the digital age involves recognizing the intrinsic worth of every person. This concept is important economically, ensuring opportunities for productive work and wealth creation, especially for those left out of the modern wealth generation engine. From a citizenship perspective, the digital age raises concerns about equality and access to the public sphere. Social media platforms have amplified voices, but the quality of participation and influence on government remain problematic. Initiatives to create digital town halls and promote thoughtful online discourse can contribute to a more inclusive and fulfilling digital public sphere.
Regulating the Digital Space
Regulating the digital space involves addressing issues related to incitement of violence, consumer safety, and competition. Social media platforms should take responsibility for the type of conversation they allow and consider their role as stakeholders in democracy. Although platforms often claim to be neutral, they make editorial and content decisions, and the market of ideas argument does not fully apply to them. Regulation should aim to create more diverse discursive spaces online and encourage better norms of behavior without eroding free speech.
Education and Digital Literacy
In addition to structural changes, cultivating good online citizenship and digital literacy is crucial. Education should include teaching norms of civility, critical thinking skills to differentiate between truth and falsehood, and awareness of propaganda and foreign influence. Balancing exposure to different perspectives and challenging ideas with maintaining a healthy discourse is important. While anonymity and intent can be problematic, fostering a search for truth and genuine exchange of ideas is essential for a healthy digital public sphere.
In this digital age, how can we organise society and the public sphere in ways that will preserve the sense of individual dignity? Ro Khanna, Congressman for Silicon Valley, and author of Dignity in a Digital Age, discusses this important topic with Nigel Warburton.
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