Governable spaces

When did you last vote in a Facebook group election, or serve on a jury settling a dispute in a subreddit? Most platforms encourage users to accept all-powerful admins, moderators and "benevolent dictators for life". In Governable Spaces, Nathan Schneider argues that the internet suffers from what he calls "implicit feudalism", a cultural and technical bias toward building communities as fiefdoms. He contends that the effects reach well beyond online life. These feudal defaults teach people to give up on the democratic potential of their communities, which makes them more willing to put up with autocratic tech CEOs and authoritarian tendencies among politicians. Schneider sees another possibility, in which online spaces become the setting for a creative, radical and democratic renaissance. Drawing on media archaeology, political theory and participant observation, he shows how the internet can take lessons from earlier legacies of governance and become a more democratic medium, one that is more responsive and inventive than anything before it.