Big Tech threatens democracy and one solution may be to take away their role as gatekeepers of content and let users choose the information presented to them
Among the many transformations taking place in the U.S. economy, none is more salient than the growth of gigantic Internet platforms. Tweets: @ethanz , @girautaoficial , @bergmayer , @barakrichman , and @foreignaffairs . Thanks: @bigdata Tweets: Ethan Zuckerman / @ethanz : Frank Fukayama and colleagues make a case for solving the platform program with middleware... which sounds a lot like @gobo_social - a program that lets you filter and sort your feed by your own transparent criteria: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ ... Juan Carlos Girauta / @girautaoficial : “Internet platforms cause political harms that are far more alarming than any economic damage they create. Their real danger is not that they distort markets; it is that they threaten democracy.” By Francis Fukuyama et al. Via @cultrun https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ ... John Bergmayer / @bergmayer : ah yes, a convoluted and possibly unconstitutional proposal like this is easier than enforcing antitrust law. very astute https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ ... Barak Richman / @barakrichman : Our key idea: choose your own algorithm. I.e., invite a new group of competitive “middleware” companies to enable users to choose how information from the dominant platforms is presented to them. https://twitter.com/... @foreignaffairs : The power that Big Tech wields is a threat to democracy, argue @FukuyamaFrancis, @BarakRichman, and @ashishgoel. Confronting that threat will require breaking the firms' monopolistic control over political information. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ ... Thanks: @bigdata
Context & Ripple Effects
The Foreign Affairs essay by Francis Fukuyama, Barak Richman, and Ashish Goel lands in a debate that earlier coverage had already framed as losing: imagined futures where social media regulation only made platforms stronger suggested that direct content rules entrench incumbents rather than fix harms. Their answer is to sidestep content moderation entirely — strip platforms of their gatekeeper role over political information by licensing a middleware layer through which users pick their own ranking algorithms, an approach Ethan Zuckerman notes mirrors his Gobo project's transparent self-filtering.
It also converges with a parallel argument that regulators should mandate interoperability to empower users and spark competition, and it arrives as governments worldwide move against tech companies with unprecedented urgency, giving the proposal a policy window.
First-order effects
- If adopted, Facebook, Google, and other platforms would no longer be the sole deciders of what political content users see — curation authority moves to third-party middleware firms whose algorithms users choose themselves.
Second-order effects
- Regulators hunting for levers that don't backfire get a template: instead of policing speech directly, they can mandate open access points for middleware, forcing platforms to compete on infrastructure rather than editorial control.
Third-order effects
- The gatekeeper function itself gets unbundled — a structural shift from a few platforms deciding the information diet toward a competitive middleware market, echoing the interoperability argument that user empowerment, not platform rule-writing, is the durable fix.
The trend: Platform governance is shifting from regulating what Big Tech says to dismantling its role as the algorithmic middleman between users and information.