January 17, 2024 // Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up to receive your own copy here.

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Project Liberty's new President shares a vision for the future

When Tomicah Tillemann worked at the US State Department ten years ago, he had the opportunity to visit Myanmar and travel throughout the country. 

In a rural community without electricity or running water, he visited a school and spoke to students in a class taught by a young woman named Democracy. When he asked the students about their dreams for their future, students’ hands shot up and without hesitation, told Tillemann that they wanted to be coders. 

The experience stuck with him. It represented the incredible power of the internet and technology to democratize access to information and unlock opportunities at scale.

But while technology has the potential to address inequities, it also poses one of the biggest challenges to today’s societies. Tillemann, today a father of five between the ages of nine and 18, said “Our kids are wonderful, but the single most challenging part of parenting is managing the relationship with technology in our home.”

Tillemann brings this dual consciousness of the promise and peril of technology into his new role as President of Project Liberty. 

In this week’s newsletter, we’re sharing insights from a recent conversation we had with Tillemann and how the roles of the private sector, civil society, and government need to work together to build more humane technologies.

// High stakes moment

Tillemann knows we are in a high-stakes moment.  

“The relationships that we have with others, the work that we conduct, the dynamics within our families, all are increasingly driven by the relationship that we have with technology,” Tillemann said.

“If we want open societies to realize their potential, we need to do a better job structuring digital systems in ways that are conducive to sustaining healthy, vibrant communities.”

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"Building a better internet is a challenge that is too big and too important for any one sector to tackle on its own."

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// The next generation internet

Today’s internet—from social media platforms to AI algorithms to software—is largely controlled by a handful of big tech platforms. In this privatized internet, not only do everyday users lack control, but they are the product: their personal data is captured and translated into compounding network effects and profits for some of the world’s biggest companies.

While big tech is more powerful than ever, so is the movement to redesign and restructure the internet to become more participatory and democratized. 

The next generation of the internet, and its enabling digital infrastructure, can learn from city planners, communities, and civic organizations who build and develop new physical spaces like city blocks, neighborhoods, and rail systems. 

The same multi-sector collaboration is also needed in our digital spaces, which is an idea that Project Liberty Alliance member New_ Public has articulated before. We need city planners and architects for digital spaces, and this starts with designing new digital infrastructure.

// The three key opportunities

For a people-centered digital future, major changes need to be realized. Tillemann spells out three opportunities that will propel Project Liberty’s efforts: 

1. Give people greater agency over their data. The surveillance-based business models employed by big tech leave little room for everyday users to own and control their data. Instead, big tech platforms use targeted online advertising to manipulate behavior for profit.
2. Provide people with a voice in the responsible governance of digital platforms. Today’s big tech companies and AI models do not provide digital citizens with enough transparency or the ability to help shape how platforms operate. We spend a huge portion of our lives online. We need to bring principles of representative governance and participation into the digital world.
3. Ensure people can participate in the economics of digital innovation and data. Today, the economic value of someone’s data accrues to corporations, not individuals. One example of this platform-take-all economic model is the way private tech companies use troves of personal data without consent or compensation to power AI algorithms. That must change.

// A multi-sector approach

Tillemann’s background spans civil society, government, and the private sector. 

• His recent private sector experience includes time as Chief Policy Officer for Haun Ventures, a leading venture capital firm investing in the future of the internet, and a partner and Global Head of Policy at Andreessen Horowitz, where he oversaw the firm’s policy work on digital assets.
• Tillemann spent much of the last decade working in the tech and society space as the Executive Director of the Digital Impact and Governance Initiative at New America, where he oversaw programs on social finance, technology, and democratic governance. 
• He started his career in government working for Joe Biden and Tony Blinken on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before moving over to the State Department to serve as speechwriter for Hillary Clinton and a senior advisor to two Secretaries of State.

As someone who has worked across multiple sectors, he sees each sector playing complementary roles to usher in the next generation of the internet:

• Government is responsible for looking after the interests of citizens, defining guardrails, and ensuring that we avoid worst-case outcomes.
• The private sector has an unmatched capacity for innovation to develop new technologies, and we should “lean into it, welcome it, and utilize it.”
• Civil society can function as a coach for leaders in both the private sector and government.

// The role of Project Liberty

Project Liberty will continue to work with both the private and public sectors to pursue three objectives:

1. Move society toward a new technology paradigm: We need to move beyond the current paradigm where big data models are used to manipulate individual behavior, and this requires building awareness amongst policy makers, technologists, and the public.
2. Support the development of new technology alternatives: As we move beyond the era of big tech, new alternative technologies will need to replace today’s platforms. Project Liberty will continue to support the development of alternatives like the social network MeWe, which uses Project Liberty’s Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP) to offer users greater control over their data.
3. Advance sustainable financing models: In parallel with the development of new alternative technologies and platforms, Project Liberty is supporting the development of new economic models where everyday people have more access to the economic value created by network effects and are compensated for their contributions.

// It will take everyone

Whether you’re a future coder in Myanmar, an advocate for democracy and healthy communities, or a parent trying to keep your kids safe, our relationship to technology is one of the most important relationships in our lives. It reaches everyone, and it will take everyone. 

“Building a better internet is a challenge that is too big and too important for any one sector to tackle on its own. We need everybody on the team,” Tillemann said. “We need everyone showing up to get this right.”

Project Liberty news

// New book by Project Liberty’s Founder

We are thrilled to announce OUR BIGGEST FIGHT by Project Liberty executive chairman and founder Frank H. McCourt Jr. and Michael J. Casey! The internet was once a utopian dream, but now it has become a toxic place. OUR BIGGEST FIGHT is a call to stop using patchwork regulations to fix this problem and reimagine the very architecture of the internet. If we act now, we have the chance to build a new, open internet that works for humanity. Learn more in OUR BIGGEST FIGHT—out on 3/12! Preorder here.

// Watch Project Liberty’s Founder on CNBC

Watch Frank McCourt, Executive Chairman of McCourt Global and Founder of Project Liberty, speak on a CNBC International panel in Davos with fellow tech leaders and innovators, where he explains ways we can prevent our democratic institutions from being undermined by online misinformation in this election cycle.

// New partnership on decentralized governance

To enhance understanding and promote responsible practices of blockchain technologies, Project Liberty Institute and BlockchainGov have embarked on a multi-stakeholder governance initiative on good governance for a responsible decentralized technological ecosystem. The first intermediary report compares, for the first time, governance mechanisms and dynamics across 11 major blockchain networks. Learn more here.

// New research on how to build public trust

Project Liberty Foundation and Georgetown grantees met to showcase innovative research on building public trust through responsible technology. Learn more about their recommendations here.

Other notable headlines

// 📱 In an article in The Guardian, five experts weigh in on if smartphones are bad for us.

// 🤖 According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, AI has a trust problem. Can blockchain help to vet AI algorithms?

// 🏛 The lawless, Wild West era of AI and technology is almost at an end, as regulators are finally catching up with big tech, according to an article in WIRED.

// ⛏ Courts are slowly chipping away at Section 230, the law the internet was built on, according to an article in Fast Company.

// 🗳 It’s a big year for elections, but the bigger issue is the decline of institutions, according to an article in The New York Times.

// 🌏 There is an AI revolution in climate science, and new insights could upend our understanding of the planet, according to an article in Project Syndicate.

// 👤 Lured by the promise of jobs in AI, young people are sifting through the internet’s worst horrors, according to an article in The Financial Times.

Partner news & opportunities

/ Project Liberty is advancing responsible development of the internet, designed and governed for the common good. /

Thank you for reading.