Join us for a critical conversation about the future of digital spaces and how we can reclaim technology for the public good.

From monopolized social media platforms to mass data extraction, “Big Tech” dominates our lives in ways that are undermining democracy, privacy, and public discourse. This raises important questions about surveillance, data colonialism, and the future of our online communities. But is there an alternative? As disillusionment with corporate social media grows, more people are leaving platforms such as X / Twitter and seeking alternative spaces, and public fundraising for those alternative spaces is emerging.

Drawing on their latest books —(Gehl's Moving Slowly and Building Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Social Democratic Federation and Couldry's The Space of the World: Can Human Solidarity Survive Social Media and What If It Can't? we will explore the failures of Big Tech and discuss practical ways we can resist them.

Biography of chair and speaker

Nick Couldry is a sociologist of media and culture. He is Professor of Media Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and since 2017 a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. He is the author or editor of seventeen books including The Mediated Construction of Reality (with Andreas Hepp, Polity, 2016), Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice (Polity 2012) and Why Voice Matters (Sage 2010). His latest books include The Space of the World: Can Human Solidarity Survive Social Media and What If It Can't? (Polity 2024), Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back (Penguin/W. H. Allen 2024, with Ulises Mejias), and Media: Why It Matters (Polity: 2019). Nick is also the co-founder of the Tierra Común network of scholars and activists.

Robert W. Gehl is a Fulbright scholar and award-winning author whose research focuses on contemporary communication technologies. He received his PhD in Cultural Studies from George Mason University in 2010. Before joining York University as an Ontario Research Chair of Digital Governance for Social Justice, he previously held an endowed research chair at Louisiana Tech. He has published over two dozen articles in journals such as New Media & Society, Communication Theory, Social Media + Society, and Media, Culture and Society. His books include Reverse Engineering Social Media (Temple), which won the Nancy Baym Book Award from the Association of Internet Researchers, Weaving the Dark Web (MIT Press), and Social Engineering (MIT Press). His forthcoming book, Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media (Oxford) explores emerging federated social media.

Nathalie Van Raemdonck is a PhD researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Media and Communication science. Her doctoral research focuses on the spread of misinformation and hostilities on social media, which she investigates through the lens of social norm contestations and platform affordances. She is interested in how future social media can be built democratic and agonistic. Nathalie previously worked in cybersecurity policy on a national and European level.

The Department of Media and Communications (@MediaLSE) is a world-leading centre for education and research in communication and media studies at the heart of LSE’s academic community in central London. The Department is ranked #1 in the UK and #3 globally in the field of media and communications (2024 QS World University Rankings).

The British Library of Political and Economic Science (@LSELibrary) was founded in 1896, a year after the London School of Economics and Political Science. It has been based in the Lionel Robbins Building since 1978 and houses many world class collections, including the Women's Library and Hall-Carpenter Archives.