Researcher unveils policy blueprint to address online misinformation, polarization

Today's social media environment threatens to rip the fabric of democracy and jeopardize self-governance in the United States and around the world, according to Lisa Schirch, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame. But she has worked with a team of more than two dozen technologists to identify a solution: Building prosocial technology that prioritizes trust, cooperation and problem solving.

Schirch, the Richard G. Starmann, Sr. Professor of the Practice of Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs, recently shared these findings at Notre Dame's National Convening on Social Media and Democracy.

Led by the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative, and in partnership with the Council for Responsible Social Media and Issue One, this gathering of government, industry and academic leaders sought to facilitate policy changes that can potentially redirect social media to foster healthy civic engagement, improve understanding of political issues, build trust in public institutions, bridge divided viewpoints and transform polarizing conversations.

The findings Schirch presented are synthesized in a policy blueprint that builds on eight years of research and consultation by the Council on Technology and Social Cohesion, which Schirch co-founded. This effort included a dozen workshops with more than 450 experts that Schirch convened over the past two years to analyze the root cause of harmful online content.

"Digital platforms are not neutral—their design influences human behavior," Schirch said. "So it's critical that we address major issues with current designs, which cause the misinformation, polarization and other public discourse issues that we experience on social media and ultimately undermine democracy."

User experience design choices drive toxic polarization, misinformation

Critics of today's frequently toxic online environment often focus on bad actors. But that's a mistake, Schirch said. The larger issue is user experience, or UX design. Often, she said, deliberate design choices prioritize profit at the expense of individual and societal well-being. These choices algorithmically amplify problematic content that preys on users' fear and anger.

Schirch said this profit-at-all-costs approach explains why people encounter and ultimately embrace online falsehoods, why they fail to exercise healthy skepticism when targeted by disinformation campaigns and why they develop negative opinions about people who don't share their political views. And this dynamic, she said, leads to dire consequences.

"We are in a very dangerous situation here where we have severe threats to our democracy in the United States," Schirch said during a public panel at Notre Dame's recent technology and democracy conference. "I want to start moving toward a solution."

Fellow panelist Dick Gephardt, former House Majority Leader and co-chair of Issue One's Council for Responsible Social Media, reinforced the urgency of finding solutions: "We are going to lose this democracy, in my humble opinion, unless we can pull this to a better place."

Using prosocial technology to strengthen civic engagement

How do policymakers address misinformation and polarization online? How can societies develop technologies that enable citizens to build trust and find common ground?

Schirch's policy blueprint proposes solutions that focus on three key areas:

• Advancing prosocial technology design. Recommendations include implementing a tiered certification system that incentivizes platforms to be more mindful of their impact; requiring minimum technology design building codes; and supporting third-party services that help mediate users' relationships with technology platforms, giving them more control over their data.
• Providing foundational governance for digital platform research. Recommendations include requiring democratic oversight of platforms as well as audits to increase transparency on everything from content moderation to ad targeting to algorithmic recommendations; developing a data standard for prosocial technology metrics; and enforcing safe harbor protections for independent, accredited researchers who evaluate platforms and their impact, empowering them to document abuses without facing backlash.
• Shifting market forces to support prosocial design. Recommendations include encouraging competition by enforcing antitrust and anti-monopoly laws; codifying product liability for adverse effects of technology; and incentivizing and investing in prosocial technology through channels ranging from private philanthropy to support from universities and nongovernmental organizations.

Importantly, Schirch said, these recommendations enlist government, civil society and the private sector as stakeholders, providing incentives for them to collaborate on proactive governance to address platform design issues and hold technology companies accountable.

The result, Schirch said, can be a more productive, less polarized public discourse that empowers citizens to find areas of agreement across party lines and encourages them to work together to find workable solutions to major challenges.

Supporting Notre Dame's broader democracy work

The policy blueprint draws upon Schirch's earlier research on democracy and technology. Ultimately, it is part of larger university efforts to study and strengthen democracy. This includes the work of the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative as well as the Keough School, which researches issues relating to democracy and human rights.

Faculty experts from across campus are supporting this work. They include researchers from the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society, the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab, the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, part of the Keough School.

Together, these experts will create an interdisciplinary and University-wide foundation for sustaining the work that extends beyond the recent campus convening. And Schirch is eager to support this mission.

"Technology is a tool that can be used to either support or erode democratic institutions and practices, and the choice is up to us," Schirch said. "Ultimately, I want this work to guide evidence-based solutions that strengthen the health of democracy worldwide."

The policy blueprint was co-published by three organizations: the Council on Technology and Social Cohesion, which Schirch co-founded; the Peacetech and Polarization Lab that Schirch directs, which is housed within the Keough School's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies; and the Toda Peace Institute, where Schirch is a senior research fellow.

More information:
Prosocial Tech Design Governance. keough.nd.edu/assets/619669/bl … gn_governance_aa.pdf

Provided by University of Notre Dame