Eli Pariser

Purple text on light background asks 'Who is holding your community together?' Blue text box contains quote: 'A retired activist who nowadays does a lot of gardening and more quiet local community activism and organizing, mostly in person or by landline.' New_Public logo appears in bottom right corner.

Purple text on light background asks 'Who is holding your community together?' Red text box contains quote: 'He started the farmer's market in the parking lot, which has become a genuine third space for the whole community.' New_Public logo appears in bottom right corner.

These people are the glue that holds communities together. We call them stewards. 🏘️

The person at the top of the phone tree. The neighbor who attends every town hall. The parent who knows every kid's birthday.

Who do you turn to in your neighborhood? Here’s some inspo from the New_ Public team 👇

The Algorithm Next Door How local digital platforms like Nextdoor and Facebook are fraying the fabric of neighborhood trust — and what we can build instead.

Across America, crime is declining towards pre-COVID levels. But not on Nextdoor. Nextdoor can make anywhere seem dangerous.

What are parents supposed to think when a headline about a missing child from a nearby elementary school rises to the top of their feed?

Two HelloTalk app screenshots on a purple background. Left screen shows a post about Durango, comparing images of Durango, Spain and Durango, Mexico, with detailed historical information about the city's name origin. Right screen displays a language learning interaction where a user asks for help pronouncing the words "of" and "off", with a response explaining the pronunciation. The HelloTalk name is prominently displayed. Both screens feature dark mode interface with multilingual flags and language exchange tags.

Want to see some of the best prosocial design anywhere? You might want to look at peer-driven language-learning apps.

These digital spaces are connecting people across cultures and leaning into the long-term, collaborative effort it takes to actually learn a language.

🗣️➡️👯‍♀️ Come for the language skills, stay for the friendship Exploring peer-driven language-learning apps like HelloTalk, Tandem and Italki

Sign up for Spanish lessons, make a new best friend? It’s more likely than you might think, thanks to collaborative language-learning apps.

In our newsletter, writer Madison Karas explains how these digital spaces are built for connection, often resulting in stronger skills and lasting friendships.

Jack Dorsey pumps $10M into a nonprofit focused on open source social media | TechCrunch Dorsey's initial investment has gotten the new nonprofit "andOtherStuff" up and running, and he worked on some of its initial iOS apps.

This investment is an encouraging sign of the growing momentum behind open source, decentralized social media and digital platforms.

Excited to see what friend of New_ Public @rabble.nz will be able to build!

Public service announcement graphic from Engaged California about community recovery after fires. The design features a dark navy blue background with large white text reading: "Know someone affected by the fires? Now's their chance to shape the future of their community." An orange button prompts viewers to "Tell them to sign up at engaged.ca.gov". The Engaged California logo is at the bottom left, and the right side of the image features overlapping circular design elements with icons of a first aid kit, a road sign, and what appears to be a fire-related symbol in orange, white, and blue colors.

Californians affected by the LA fires can now sign up to share their opinions with the state government and ‪@governor.ca.gov‬ on what’s needed most as the state rebuilds.

It’s a great opportunity to help shape the future, together.

engaged.ca.gov

Bar graph showing trust levels across different groups, ranging from local to broader societal contexts. The percentages of trust are: 62% for parents of children who go to the same school, 59% for next-door neighbors, 57% for local law enforcement, 54% for people who share political beliefs, 53% for local community, 50% for other nearby neighbors, and 41% for people in the U.S. overall. The graph demonstrates a gradient from darker blue (more local/intimate connections) to lighter blue (broader societal connections), illustrating how trust decreases as the social circle widens.

While trust has been falling nationwide in the US for a half century, there is good news: we tend to trust our neighbors more.

That’s a starting point in forging connection and building local resilience, pride, and fun.

www.allstatenewsroom.com/news/allstat...

“Touch grass.” “Detoxing.” So many ways to say you’re taking a break from social media.

It’s not you, it's the platform.

We’re obsessed with finding alternatives to the engagement-focused, profit-driven status quo. Here are some of our recent favorites to explore, outside of the doom scroll. 👇

Circular infographic titled "Demotion all the way" showing X (Twitter) content moderation policies and techniques for 2024. The chart is divided into three main sections: Removal, Reducing Reach, and Other. Color-coded segments represent different moderation actions such as asking to remove content, labeling, content warnings, suspending accounts, removing posts, reporting to authorities, restricting discoverability, excluding ads, and applying Community Notes. The chart includes categories like Child Safety, Adult Content, Election Integrity, and Authentication. An orange arc surrounds the circular diagram, highlighting the Community Notes feature as a key moderation tool.

Many platforms are adopting crowd-sourced factchecking. But does it work?

This Dutch study found that Community Notes for X's most divisive content often failed to reach consensus, leaving false or inflammatory content visible and unchecked.

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

'I live in a very small, remote community. It's definitely not one of the liberal, coastal elite cities. And community-level communications here are so important. There's a rural weekly newspaper that still gets printed every week and published by an older couple who are trying to sell the business. I think we also have quite a good communicative culture, but at the same time there's a lot of Facebook-driven conflict. Our community is totally dependent on Facebook groups for communication. Especially being rural, you don't see your neighbors necessarily, but you see them online. We're on the front lines of climate change. My property burned last year and we were evacuated. There was another fire yesterday that sparked up a couple of kilometers from here. So these communication tools are just so, so important for everyday life. I feel the need for this product every single day. I think it would be useful in urban contexts as well.'

Living in rural Canada, @blaine.bsky.social urgently needs new, better tools to help him connect with his neighbors.

“Our community is totally dependent on Facebook groups for communication…I feel the need for this product every single day.”

Now, he’s building it at New_ Public.

Table 2: Factors that may influence relations between digital technology and social connection. The table has four rows with green headers: Type of technology (whether technology has low social presence like email, social media, online games, or high social presence like voice and video calls), How it is used (whether social media are used actively with direct exchanges or passively by consuming content without engaging), Why it is used (whether technology is used to enhance relationships and make new friends or to compensate for poor social skills), and Who uses it (associations may differ by age group, culture or personality type, which may determine how and why technology is used). Each row includes citation numbers in parentheses.

Worth a read: @who.int's new flagship report on social connection.

The authors, including Co-Chair Vivek Murthy, who prioritized loneliness as a public health issue as Surgeon General, attempt to pin down the complex interplay between social media & social connection.

www.who.int/groups/commi...

Purple gradient background with geometric 3D cube design. White text reads 'Now hiring' at top, followed by 'Frontend Engineer, Public Spaces Incubator' as the main heading. Job details listed below: '40 hours/week', '$140-$160k', 'Remote U.S. or Canada'.

We’re hiring a Frontend Engineer to join the Public Spaces Incubator team. Do you have:

🏡 Passion for building tech for the public good?
💭 Expertise in user exp & meaningful engagement?
📦 A history of shipping real products?
🤝 Strong collaboration skills?

Apply now! newpublic.org/jobs/creativ...

Job listing graphic for an External Engagement Fellow in bright green with white text and geometric line art background. Details include: "NOW HIRING" at the top, position title "External Engagement Fellow", job specifics of 20-25 hours per week at $40/hour, and remote work available in U.S. or Canada. The design features abstract architectural-style line drawings and shapes in darker green and white.

Interested in helping fund projects that reimagine the social internet?

We need a systems thinker with org development experience and high EQ to join New_ Public as an External Engagement Fellow!

Every once in a while, if you’re lucky, you get to share a “new job” update that’s more like a “life goal ✅” update. This is one of those times.

🐦💙 He coded Twitter. Now he’s building tech for New_ Public A Q&A with Blaine Cook, our new Principal Software Engineer for Local

Twitter was built as an organizing tool from the start. As one of its first coders, @blaine.bsky.social developed features (like the @ reply) with and for activists.

Read about how Blaine's focus on pro-social tech drove his journey from 90s activism to building local digital spaces at New_ Public.

Facebook’s content moderation ‘happens too late,’ says new Northeastern research Northeastern professor Laura Edelson proposes a new metric called “prevented dissemination” to predict a given post’s future dissemination.

📑 RESEARCH: social media moderation is premised on removing harmful content so more people don’t see it.

But does that work?

In the rare cases when posts are taken down, it’s often too late: removals only prevent “24% to 30%” of a post’s total reach.

Infographic titled "Since the January 2025 policy rollbacks:" showing survey statistics about Meta platforms. Key findings: 1 in 6 respondents reported being victims of gender-based or sexual violence; 92% are concerned about harmful content increasing; 72% report harmful content targeting protected groups has increased; 92% feel less protected from harmful content exposure

Social media is often a place to find community, especially for people on the margins.

But what if the platforms become inhospitable?

A new @glaad.bsky.social, @ultraviolet.bsky.social, @weareallout.bsky.social report shows the impact of Meta's recent hate speech policy changes: makemetasafe.org

Job: External Engagement Fellow | New_ Public We are seeking an External Engagement Fellow to join our team from September 2025 through February 2026! We’re looking for a detail-oriented and systems-savvy individual who is excited to learn how a ...

💼 New_ Public is hiring an External Engagement Fellow!

Help our nonprofit R&D lab strengthen its fundraising and outreach operations. Manage workflows, research funders, plan events, and gain hands-on nonprofit development experience.

Sept 2025-Feb 2026
$40/hr part-time
Remote, US or Canada

GitHub - louisbarclay/awesome-web-research-tools: A curated list of awesome tools, frameworks, and resources for web research data collection, including tools that support observational methods, exper... A curated list of awesome tools, frameworks, and resources for web research data collection, including tools that support observational methods, experimental interventions on the web, and simulatio...

While information available on the internet is seemingly limitless, social media research tools have been frustratingly siloed.

To alleviate this, Friend of New_ Public @louisbarclay.bsky.social is compiling resources for researchers, practitioners, and digital enthusiasts of all kinds.

Social media graphic with dark blue background featuring decorative icons including a thumbs up, speech bubble, and exclamation mark. Main text reads 'LA fire survivors spoke.' in large white letters, followed by 'Engaged California helped amplify their voices.' Below that is 'Here are the next steps.' with a call-to-action button reading 'engaged.ca.gov'. The Engaged California logo appears in the bottom right corner.

We love to see digital civic experimentation at every level of government.

After the LA fires, impacted community members submitted over 1,300 comments through @engaged-california.bsky.social, a new platform to help people directly communicate with their neighbors and elected officials.

Quote graphic featuring Deepti Doshi with a quote reading: "Just as we invest in local infrastructure offline, we need to do the same online: designing public spaces that are community-led, resilient, and built for care." The image has a gradient purple and blue background with geometric shapes, and a circular portrait of Deepti, a woman with short dark hair, smiling warmly while wearing a blue top. The "New_Public" logo is displayed at the bottom left of the image.

July 4th is tomorrow: what’s more American than universal freedom, rights, and opportunity? How do we make them real in our daily lives?

New_ Public Co-Director @deeptidoshi.bsky.social: through the unglamorous work of showing up in our local communities—online and off.

What would happen if you were paired with a stranger and made to talk for 30 minutes?

For @puddingviz.bsky.social, @alv9n.com‬ watched recordings of nearly 1700 of these conversations, and he learned something important about social trust and bridging social capital.

Bar chart showing proportion of people who accessed different types of local news and information in the last week, averaged across 45 markets. Local news stories (crimes, accidents) leads at 49%, followed by local activities/culture (things to do, reviews, walks, talks) at 38%, local information services (train/bus times, weather, movie times) at 37%, local politics/government at 32%, things to buy/sell locally including services like plumbers and electricians at 26%, local sports/clubs at 20%, and local notices such as births, deaths, and marriages at 19%. Data from Reuters Institute and University of Oxford, based on 90,995 respondents, excluding Chile, Kenya, and Nigeria.

What people all around the world want from local news is reliable information they can use about their community. Local news can rebuild trust by delivering.

Insights from a global survey of local news audiences by @reutersinstitute.bsky.social‪‬: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news...

Career Chat with New_ Public Interested in learning more about responsible tech, or the work we do at New_ Public? If you have questions, here's your chance to learn more, directly from one of our co-directors, Deepti Doshi. Si...

Trying to navigate a career in social media that’s not soul sucking or making the world worse? We’re here for you.

Sign up here to join a one hour, free form Career Chat with New_ Public Co-Director @deeptidoshi.bsky.social next Tuesday, July 8, at 4pm EST / 1pm PST

🇺🇸🗽🎆 Real freedom starts with community New_ Public Co-Director Deepti Doshi says our rights must be lived out in our neighborhoods, communities, and shared digital spaces

Our Co-Director @deeptidoshi.bsky.social draws on her parents' journey to the U.S. to argue that American ideals only become real through local community action.

To Deepti, our neighborhoods, schools, and digital spaces are where we actually practice freedom together — not just defend it from afar.

Bar graph titled "A majority of parents wish social media apps didn't exist" showing percentage of parents who wish certain technologies had never been invented. Top items include Mature online content (72%), Guns (62%), TikTok (62%), X/Twitter (62%), and Snapchat (60%). Lower on the list are technologies like Streaming services (20%), Basic mobile phones (20%), Large vehicles (19%), Television (17%), Newspapers (15%), Radio (14%), and Bicycles (9%). The survey question reads: "When I think about my child's experience growing up, I wish __ had never been invented". Source is attributed to Harris Poll.

A genuinely stunning chart.

(gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/o...

Purple background featuring a quote from Eli Pariser, Co-Director of New_ Public. The quote reads: "The peril is tighter, smaller filter bubbles where the group chat replaces social media and reduces cross-connection and serendipity. The promise is a move to some mezzo-level spaces that are not a billion people all vying for attention in one space, but that are bound at a human scale."

One major trend in a recent report from the BBC: people are growing tired of the increasingly commodified and disconnected major platforms, and are seeking out smaller, private digital spaces.

Our Co-Director @eli.bsky.social says “there’s promise and peril” in this approach to social media.

Bluesky is most definitely alive and kicking CEO Jay Graber says the days of winner-take-all social networking are over. Thank heavens she’s right.

Bluesky CEO @jay.bsky.team is right, we need to stop thinking of social media as a zero-sum game that platforms are “winning” or “losing.”

Why not measure friendships, or genuine connection? We need to rethink what we value in our online tools for socializing.

Job: Creative Technologist & Frontend Engineer, Public Spaces Incubator | New_ Public We are seeking a Creative Technologist / Frontend Engineer to join our team! In this role, you will play a key part in building on, and refining, the user interface of the Public Spaces Incubator (PSI...

We’re looking for an exceptional Creative Technologist & Frontend Engineer for the Public Spaces Incubator team.

We need someone who can craft exceptional user experiences and is committed to helping reinvent digital communication for public media institutions.

Is that you?

YouTube video by Mastercard News Tech, trust, and the competitive edge

Is there any hope for the internet?

New_ Public Co-Director @eli.bsky.social sees hope in the community stewards who care for small digital groups.

“When they're empowered, and when they have the tools that they need, they can do amazing things in bringing people together.”