The Impossible Necessity of Decentralized Social Platforms

Abstract

Social life is increasingly connected to digital platforms: personal relationships, commerce, political participation, public and private services, unfold in a way which is largely determined by what these platforms provide. Few of them, mostly based in the US, have acquired dominant positions not only in key businesses but also in the political sphere, thus yielding their owners a power similar to that exerted by traditional social bodies. The need of a global governance of digital platforms is often posited; however, due to their global import and their critical mass, it is not easy to figure out what such governance could be. A return to the web of the origin, i.e. decentralized and equal, is generally evoked. On the way to such return, however, open research problems and social issues would be encountered, which would require specific and concrete actions. This paper provides a brief and far from exhaustive discussion on actions to be taken to make a global decentralization of digital platforms happen.