New_ Public

@newpublic.org

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New_ Public is a nonprofit product studio focused on reimagining community, connection, and conversation online. newpublic.org

Better online spaces can now emerge Finally, there are concerns that keeping kids off social media platforms will deprive them of access to information and important communities, and will limit their ability to express themselves. They see age minimums as an infringement on children’s rights. Governments should take these concerns seriously. But based on what has already happened in Australia, we believe age minimums will create a larger market for platforms that are both safer for young people and more conducive to authentic speech.
And lastly, like the feed for me is just the stoop
I joined or was recruited to join New Public because, in addition to being a designer and a technologist, I'm a trained urban planner. So I had that urbanist background and when I joined, I went and told people in my urban planning world what I was going to be doing. Almost to a person, every person that I told about this project laughed and said, "So you're telling me you know the answer to what makes a healthy public space." I gave an internal presentation early on in my tenure at New Public that pointed to how everything in physical space is contested. Part of building parks, plazas, and neighborhoods, and getting to a master plan in a city, is navigating all of those tensions and all of the different stakeholders. Nothing gets built without doing that. Every country and every community has a different approach to this; the US has actually gone quite far in requiring a lot of community engagement.
A diagram from Hybrid Public Square titled "For most online content, both humans and AI will be involved in production." A horizontal color bar spans four categories from left to right: Fully human (human-authored, no AI involvement), AI-assisted (AI helps the human draft and publish), Human principal, transparent agent (agent acts on your behalf, but you're accountable), and Autonomous agent (no clear principal). Below the bar, a bracket groups the middle two categories as the "Transparent Agent Economy" — agents attached to disclosed human principals — and a second bracket groups the rightmost category as the "Dark Agent Economy" — agents with no disclosed principal, where you can't tell who sent them or whose interests they serve.
A heatmap table from Pangram titled "AI is prevalent across social media, most of all in longform," showing the share of items flagged as fully AI-generated across five platforms for shortform (50–250 words) and longform (250+ words) content, Apr–Jun 2026. LinkedIn has the highest AI rates (30% shortform, 41% longform), followed by Medium (28%, 31%). X/Twitter shows a large gap between shortform and longform (9% vs. 29%), while Reddit is lowest overall (3%, 13%). Substack is the only platform where shortform exceeds longform (12% vs. 10%).
I confess that I am astounded by how blithely some insist that it is all as simple as learning to use AI well, as if we had not just undergone a nearly 20-year, society-wide experiment showing that a so-called “tool,” say a smartphone or a social media platform, will (mal)form even the most vigilant and virtuous user into its own image and shape.
Join a community, migrate to another, or start your own on your terms. But most people are sadly not here yet. They're trapped in walled gardens controlled by billionaires, where feeds are manipulated, people are silenced, our data is sold, there's ads everywhere, and platforms mutate or vanish overnight. We're building Bonfire on different values, stoking our fire as the old model enshittifies, burns out, and makes room for the new. We've created a toolkit for building better social spaces, and Bonfire social is the first app we built. Browse the feed you want with no secret algorithms. Before posting, you can set boundaries, who can see, reply, quote you, or even edit. With Circles, share things with your crew, team, or neighborhood. Bonfire is open source, federated, and community-governed.
Hey, hey, good morning. My name is Brendan. I'm one of the founders of Leaflet. That's leaflet.pub, a publishing platform for the open social web. So, we are a way to make blogs and newsletters and all kinds of other fun publishing experiences for artists, creators, scientists, scene builders, local organizers. Basically, we're trying to make publishing more fun and more social. And we're really excited about the potential of open social technologies like app protocol and the atmosphere for giving people a lot more flexibility and control over the social context that you're a part of while also still being plugged into this global social layer. And we're doing some cool things like standard.site together with pocket and off-print. Leaflet has created the set of shared standards for social publishing and there's a lot of cool people building on that ecosystem other tools for reading and writing and discovery and stuff like that that we're excited about
What’s really great about this is that it allows authors control over how they shape the community they’re building. One-size-fits-all moderation guidelines don’t always work for every community, especially when those communities use what linguistics professors like me call “reclamation,” terms and phrases that, from someone outside of the community, would be considered slurs or vulgar language. But when used for reclamation within the community, this language works as community bonding, as empowerment. I have optimism that Reply Rules will work well to hide obvious abuse, but I am less confident it will do a good job hiding posts that are covertly or subtly abusive, and I wonder about how it will deal with useful or desirable reclamation behaviors.
Hello, Open Social Awards. My name is Eli Mallon. I'm the founder and CEO of StreamPlace. StreamPlace is open source software for broadcasting video on the internet. Sort of like Twitch or YouTube, but we've built it from the ground up to put creator authenticity at its core. Open Social is critical because there's nothing more important right now than fixing the information ecosystem. We've been failed by both our traditional media institutions and the stewards of the social networks that were supposed to replace them. Never before in human history has power over the flow of information been so concentrated in the hands of a few American billionaires. With StreamPlace, we're building an alternative media infrastructure to empower the creators and developers that are fighting back. All content broadcast in StreamPlace contains embedded cryptographic signatures.
Transcript: And then, the PSI team has even started rethinking, like, if you say "screw the mayor," we're making a distinction between uncivil and intolerant language. And we don't allow intolerant language that's targeted at groups or people, and then uncivil language that's punching up versus punching down. So we, through some of our, like, through running these things for a long time, uncivil language that's directed upward is part of a healthy democracy, right? Like, you should be able to criticize your government. At least that's what we believe and how we operate. Maybe that's not how every administration operates, but that's what we believe. And so we are starting to tweak our approach to allow uncivil speech that's directed upward.
Transcript: Hello, my name is Steven Reid, and I'm the founder and lead developer of Dandelion, a fee-free AT Protocol-powered ticketing platform run by a not-for-profit worker cooperative. So, what problems are we trying to solve? Firstly, we're fee-free. Many other ticketing platforms take outrageous cuts of ticket revenue. Dandelion runs on a donation-based model where users can leave an optional tip at checkout. Second, we're run by a not-for-profit worker cooperative. Other platforms take VC money, which ultimately entails enshittification in the form of higher prices and/or intrusive ads. Dandelion's co-op model ensures our incentives are aligned with yours, making the best possible platform for event organizers. Thirdly, our code is fair-source and events are posted to AT Protocol. Other platforms keep their source code and your data locked away, which restricts utility and means if the platform ever disappears, so do your events
A blue slide with two side-by-side boxes and a rightward arrow between them, all in yellow-green text. The left box has a solid border and is headed "While we have been preserving…" with two points: "Protecting the information systems of yesterday (television, newspapers, etc.)" and "Defending against the rise of new platforms (AI, social video, platforms, etc.)." The right box has a dashed border and is headed "We should be reimagining…" with two points: "Envisioning what democracy and community engagement looks like with unprecedented tools." and "Supporting adaptable leaders with agile capital who are dreaming of new ways to communicate and inform."
ALT: Anuj Ahooja, the Executive Director of the non-profit A New Social, describes Bounce, an open social web migration tool. In the video, he accepts the honorable mention award from the Open Social Awards.
I think what's going to happen—and I think we're starting to see this—is I sort of think about it like the food industry. Coming out of World War II, we ended up with really mass-market food. We had Wonder Bread, we had TV dinners, and we had things that everybody had access to. They were produced in this mass-market way and didn't have a ton of nutritional value. And like, I love Kraft Mac & Cheese; it's my absolute comfort food. Does it have a ton of nutritional value? Not really. And you had this sort of surge in it starting in the '90s, which I think Gen Z has very much embraced, although they didn't start this, of organic food and farm-to-table. Thank God Kraft Mac & Cheese still exists. You might see Facebook still exist in some way; you might see sort of mass-market technology still exist, but you're going to start having more bespoke technologies. You're going to start having things that look a little bit different, and I think this is the beginning of that trend.
An infographic titled "Digital Spectrum: Identifying the Gaps Between Community Needs and Funder Goals." A horizontal spectrum line spans from "Established Tech" on the left (with bullet points: Websites, CRMs, Online surveys, Social channels) to "Emergent Tech" on the right (with bullet points: AI, Decentralized infrastructure, Advanced deliberation tools, Influencer operations). A label on the left reads "Communities tend to be on this side" and on the right "Funder attention tends to be on this side," with a downward arrow between them.
Transcript: Hey, I'm Tyler Fischer and I'm the creator of Sill. Sill helps you get news from social media by looking at the most popular links in your network. Think of it like a personalized news feed, taking signal from the people you trust to show you the news that matters. People should be paying attention to open social media because with it, we can rewrite the rules of the internet in favor of people instead of platforms. With Sill, I hope to offer a healthier way of using social media, one that respects your time rather than demands your attention. With open social media, tools like Sill are possible. Stop doomscrolling and use Sill. Thank you
A light lavender background with dark purple text and design elements. In the upper left, the words "Tiny Awards" are written in a cursive serif font inside a thin oval outline. In the upper right, there is a small asterisk-like starburst symbol. Below, two paragraphs of text read: "This is the home of the Tiny Awards, which, since 2023, has celebrated the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web." and "The Tiny Awards exist because we thought it was important to shine a spotlight on the sorts of personal web projects that tend to get overlooked by more traditional, larger or more commercial awards."
Pink background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Pink banner reads "Honorable Mention." Shows black gear icon logo, "Bounce | Seattle & San Francisco, USA" and description "Lets you migrate your network between ActivityPub and AT Protocol: you can leave any platform without losing your community."
Pink background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Pink banner reads "Honorable Mention." Shows yellow/orange campfire illustration, "Bonfire Networks | Italy & UK" and description "A modular, open-source framework for communities to build their own federated digital spaces, with their own governance, moderation, and features."
Pink background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Pink banner reads "Honorable Mention." Shows black dandelion seed head logo, "Dandelion | UK & Sweden" and description "An event ticketing and community platform."
Pink background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Pink banner reads "Honorable Mention." Shows green leaf illustration, "Leaflet | Brooklyn, USA" and description "A publishing platform for independent writers."
Pink background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Pink banner reads "Honorable Mention." Shows pink cube logo, "Streamplace | Seattle, USA" and description "Open-source live and on-demand video built on AT Protocol, verifying human authenticity in an era of AI-generated content."
Hi, I'm Saskia, the head of community at the Newsmast Foundation. We help mission-driven organizations create independent, ethical digital spaces through simple and affordable community apps. We are building communities, making connections, and growing social networks for journalists, activists, scientists, and local groups across the world. Our goal is to make the open social web accessible to everyone, providing powerful tools without technical complexity. We believe that communities deserve spaces that reflect their values and support genuine connection. That's why we are delighted to be the winners of the grand prize at the inaugural Open Social Awards. Thank you.
Pink background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Orange banner reads "Excellence Award Winner." Below shows large gold letter "S" logo, "Sill | Haarlem, Netherlands" and description "Surfacing interesting links from your feeds."
Pink background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Orange banner reads "Excellence Award Winner." Below shows Blacksky Algorithms logo (black star icon) and name, followed by "Blacksky Algorithms | New York, USA" and description "Largest black community on the Open Social Web & provider of community infrastructure."
Beige background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Yellow banner reads "Grand Prize Winner." Below shows Newsmast Foundation logo (red geometric icon) and name, followed by "London, UK" and description "Helping organisations build their own safe, independent online communities."
A graphic announcing the Open Social Awards 2026 Winners. The light blue header features a fireworks illustration and the Open Social Awards logo. Below, on a white background: Grand Prize goes to Newsmast Foundation (shown with a red geometric logo). Excellence Awards go to Sill (shown with a gold "S" logo) and Blacksky Algorithms (shown with a black starburst logo). Honourable Mentions go to Bounce, Dandelion, Streamplace, Leaflet, and Bonfire Networks.
Light background with teal "The New New Gatekeepers" label. Left side reads "Because the agentic interface knows you intimately and shapes everything you see, consumers must be able to trust the model and the model makers" (with teal text for "consumers must be able to trust the model and the model makers"). Right side shows note "The incentives of these systems are already under scrutiny" with news article card below titled "AI system resorts to blackmail if told it will be removed" by Liv McMahon, Technology reporter, dated 23 May 2025, showing Claude logo image.
I started a “Trivia Tuesday” that slowly built a small following and is doing well now. I think it does foster community engagement in our group because we have so many transplants that don’t know the full history of a very historic city … My last trivia question had several people thanking us because they never knew why a local school was named after one of our very own former residents.
[TRANSCRIPT] Angelica Quicksey has shoulder-length dark curly hair and is wearing a white button-down with small black dots. Josh Kramer has short brown hair and beard. He's wearing a red plaid button-down.
In his writing, Jack-Lucas uses fiction to explore how AI systems shape behavior and relationships. For example, he looked at the recent film “The Drama” to examine how AI models handle morally ambiguous situations. Here’s his request: I’m looking to connect with editors familiar with social tech who can help sharpen my framing, or researchers interested in co-writing something at the intersection of responsible AI and platform design. If that sounds like you, reach out. I’m also taking movie suggestions!
But here’s what I want to emphasize: AI is capable of supporting human connection or eroding it. There’s nothing inherent in the technology that says which of these directions we will head. In fact, some of these problems emerge at the very end of the process of making AI models. Take sycophancy. Labs spend billions of dollars and extraordinary amounts of computing power training, baking these models. And when that’s done, the models are not particularly sycophantic. As Kashmir and others have reported, sycophancy is not primarily a result of the baking, it’s the frosting on the cake – it mostly comes in post-training, when the companies are fine-tuning their models to ensure that they are maximally engaging to users. To me, this is good news. If AI was rotten to the core of its technology – if its worst consequences were built in – that would be one thing. But there’s another path available to us.
A person in white papal vestments and a white zucchetto stands in the aisle of an airplane cabin, holding a wooden baseball bat. A seated passenger has his back to the camera. A photographer captures the moment in the background.
Social media stopped being primarily about connecting socially a long time ago. People still use a range of technologies to connect to friends and build relationships, but we don’t call those technologies – like texting and group chats – “social media.” Media shared on platforms may support social connections by creating a common culture, just as media shared via TV or magazines did historically (Meyrowitz, 1986). But that is not the same as creating a digital space for sociality. It is easy to look back and argue that we were naïve, but I don’t think that is fair. It was not inevitable that social media platforms would become the dumpster fire that they did become. But I do think that we made a mistake when we collectively agreed to call this phenomenon “social media.” That linguistic frame biased how we normatively interpreted the practices on these platforms.
Light background with teal "The New New Gatekeepers" label. Text reads "These agentic interfaces are becoming the medium for social life and information online" (with teal text for "medium for social life and information online"). Below states "They respond with everything you need to know, curated for you, in the format you prefer" (with teal text for "curated for you").
Light background with teal "The New New Gatekeepers" label. Large text reads "We're experiencing a changing of the guard: A set of new new gatekeepers will control what the public sees online" (with teal text for "new new gatekeepers")
Teal background split vertically. Left side (darker teal) reads "Connection survives. Trust is scarce. Building is cheap. This combination hasn't existed before." Right side (lighter teal) shows "Three opportunities" label with three numbered items: "01. High-trust micro communities - Build the spaces where people actually want to be," "02. AI-supported stewardship - Make healthy communities sustainable at scale," "03. The hybrid public square - Design the internet that humans and agents share."
Light background with teal "Software Abundance" label. Heading reads "We are moving into a world of software abundance." Three boxes with green gradient borders: "Lowering the Cost" (money bag icon) - Building software takes hours and $20/month subscription. "Lowering the Barrier" (door icon) - Product builders vibe code by describing what they want and AI builds it. "A Booming Market" (chart icon) - GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and Cursor each surpassed $1B in annual recurring revenue.
Light background with teal "Emerging Trust Economy" label. Left side states "If trust is the new economy, thick reputation is the new currency." Right side explains thick reputation is contextual and slow, built over time through sustained contribution in specific communities. Notes reputation is no longer "10K followers" but "people trust me." Poses design challenge for builders about making thick reputation legible and portable.
Light blue background with teal "Connection Survives" label. Left side states "The human 'advantage' lies in the areas of connection, belonging, and creative expression." Right side shows chart with gradient bar from "HUMAN ADVANTAGE" to "AI ADVANTAGE." Six categories listed: Connecting & Belonging (26 jobs, LOW AI replacement), Expressing & Creating (17 jobs, LOW), Coordinating (19 jobs, MEDIUM), Influencing & Earning (24 jobs, MEDIUM), Enjoying & Escaping (22 jobs, HIGH), Learning & Deciding (26 jobs, HIGHEST). Each category includes example tasks.
Ultimately, ecosystem thinking is a reclamation of our digital public spaces. It’s a refusal of inevitability, of helplessness. These spaces play a crucial role in the ways that we organize, socialize, advocate, and experience culture. Without them, without an ecosystem, we limit the diversity of voices, practices, and experiences that emerge in the commons. Allowing these spaces to erode would lose us the dissent and solidarity that reveal our values as an online community. And listen: we have a lot of work to do. Our public spaces are far from perfect, but they are worth saving. To think like an ecologist is to stay engaged, to pay attention, and to steward the internet toward a more human and resilient future.
Light blue background with teal label "The New New Gatekeepers." Heading states "We're experiencing a changing of the guard: A set of new new gatekeepers controls what the public sees" (with teal text for "new new gatekeepers"). Three arrow-shaped stages shown: Stage 01 "Old Gatekeepers" (1850-2010) - Institutions: Newspaper editors, TV network anchors. Stage labeled "This was the Filter Bubble era." Stage "New Gatekeepers" (2010-2025) - Platforms & Algorithms: Facebook, Google, Twitter feeds. Stage 03 "New New Gatekeepers" (2025-Present) - Agentic interfaces: LLM-powered interfaces tuned to you.
Light blue background with teal "Connection Survives" label. Heading reads "Platforms built on human-to-human relationships are anchored in what AI can't replicate." Two columns showing the platform, risk level, and why they are protected or exposed. "PROTECTED" (green border) lists WhatsApp (LOW risk, private messaging/relationships/groups), Telegram (LOW, private messaging/communities), Discord (LOW, community/voice/real-time), Snapchat (LOW, close friends/ephemeral/intimate). "EXPOSED" (red border) lists YouTube (HIGH risk, tutorials/how-to/reviews), TikTok (HIGH, entertainment feed/discovery), Instagram (MEDIUM, visual content/shopping), Reddit (MEDIUM, Q&A/research/recommendations), LinkedIn (MEDIUM, job matching/professional content).
Roundabout Burlington interface showing Guides section with post from Katie-Beth about "Women's Resources in Burlington: Support, Care, and Community." Cover image shows four women smiling with text overlay. Post describes guide created for Women's History Month about organizations supporting women and families in Burlington and Alamance County. Shows 4 likes and "Helpful 1."
AI vendors are clearly the “new new gatekeepers”. Like the previous ones, they will dominate how we learn about the world even while some of us turn to open source and liberatory alternatives. But they may not dominate how we connect and share our experiences of the world, and that’s the core of the opportunity: how do we design pro-social frameworks and spaces that sit alongside an agentic information ecosystem?
Light beige background with text reading "We are still in early days. In 1999, everyone believed these five companies would rule the internet." Five vintage company logos displayed in grid: top row shows AOL, MSN, and Netscape; bottom row shows AltaVista and Yahoo!
Dictionary-style definition with large "K". Entry reads "Kay-la-Kross'ed /ˈkālə ˈkrōst/ adj. 1 The feeling of listening to a song and liking it, then finding out it was AI-generated and not liking it as much."
Dictionary-style definition with large "A". Two entries: "AI-xiety /ˌAĪˈzīədē/ n. 1 Being overly focused on justifying your use of AI in conversations with others." and "Artificial Affirmation /ˌärdəˈfiSHəl ˌafərˈmāSHən/ n. 1 A false sense of confidence that comes from AI endorsing your ideas."
Light blue background with browser window illustration on left showing social media post with user icon, text lines, and engagement metrics: 12 likes, 2 reposts, and "Quality Score 5" label. Right side displays "Quality Scores" heading with subtitle "Increase engagement with high quality content" and box showing "OUR CONFIDENCE RATING" with dot cluster icon and text "Tentative."
Banner image with gradient background from gray to red/orange with water droplet texture. White text reads: "JOIN US FOR Global Expo 2026 From Harm Mitigation to Intentional Design MAY 20, 2026"
US map showing 5 active Roundabout communities with circular profile photos and orange location labels: Lincoln County WI, Lancaster County PA, Richmond VA, Chattanooga TN, and Burlington NC. Yellow text box on left states "Roundabout is live in 5 communities, with a waitlist of nearly 500 stewards." Purple dots indicate additional locations.
Roundabout Richmond post from 2/15/2026 asking "where do you do your local plant shopping?" with text "looking forward to spring & wanting to add some greenery to my space! what are your favorite plant shops or nurseries in the area?" Post has 2 likes and marked Helpful. Three replies shown: first from 2/16/2026 recommending Sneed's with 1 like and marked Helpful, second from 1 day ago mentioning plant sale at Shine Farms. Left sidebar shows navigation menu with Home, Feed, Guides, Calendar, and New Post button.
Post titled "Public input for changes to Hixson Pike" from 2 days ago, sharing opportunity for public input on Northshore area changes with long URL link. Post has 1 like and marked "Helpful 1." One reply visible thanking user for pointing it out and mentioning highlighting for community.
Roundabout Burlington interface showing Guides section with post from Katie-Beth about "Women's Resources in Burlington: Support, Care, and Community." Cover image shows four women smiling with text overlay. Post describes guide created for Women's History Month about organizations supporting women and families in Burlington and Alamance County. Shows 4 likes and "Helpful 1."