Explore the DRC's Latest Opinion Pieces and Conversations

Welcome to the DRC blog, where we’ll be sharing insights and reflections on the themes that animate our work: how decentralized technologies are governed; what equitable data ownership might look like; how we can align technological progress with public values (and challenge it when it doesn’t); and where theory comes into contact with real-world implementation.

When One Company Owns Your Memory

Search was once open, messy, and plural. Then PageRank turned discovery into a single chokepoint, and Google became the gatekeeper of the web. Social media promised connection, then collaborative filtering concentrated our attention on a handful of feeds optimized for outrage and compulsion. Both became monopolies, both rewrote society. Now, AI brings a new frontier: memory, the structured record of our lives.

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Status Games: Social Media and the Gamification of Value

Status, unlike power or wealth, is a measure of social standing that must be conferred by others, and the Internet has enabled a plethora of quantifiable status measurements. These measurements of value are, however, inherently flawed. Conferring status creates inequality by definition and quantifying it exacerbates that inequality.

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