Forum is Launching a New Digital Community! How Can We Make the Internet Feel Like Your Bay Area?

Alexis Madrigal

Aug 10, 2023 at

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A group of people communicating with each other through phones. Against a gradient background that goes from yellow to green.

(Getty Images)

For many of us, the internet has two faces. It can be a place where we’re bombarded by disinformation and polarized viewpoints, subjected to rage and frustration. But it can also be where people with different interests, ideas, and life experiences come together to find common ground. Share jokes. Build things together. This hopeful version of the internet is the focus of a new digital community that Forum’s creating on the platform Discord. We’ll talk about what our new community is, what we hope it will become, how to escape social media’s nasty decline, and how to foster conversations on the internet that aren’t awful.

Guests:

Eli Pariser, author, "The Filter Bubble: What the internet is hiding from you;" co-director, New Public

Marina Gorbis, executive director, Institute for the Future

Grace Ling, founder, Design Buddies Discord community; UX designer, Electronic Arts (EA); content creator

Francesca Fenzi, digital community manager, KQED's Forum

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