Social Media & Tech Solidarity

The Social Media & Tech Solidarity project asks leaders in academia, organizing, and storytelling (journalism, documentary & entertainment): can social media—or other communication technologies—power cultural solidarity?

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In advance of a convening held at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Harvard Business School, Dr. Escoffery spoke to two dozen leaders in art, activism, and academia about how social platforms help or hinder their efforts at cultivating solidarity and community care.

Storytellers, community organizers, and thought leaders focused on cultivating a culture of equity and solidarity are facing incredible challenges in the current social media environment. There is an overwhelming sense that the deck is stacked against the work of sharing healing stories and empowering information. Algorithmic technologies and the economic incentives structuring their development are creating a hostile environment for all kinds of communities, from our local neighborhoods to those connected by shared cultural lineages.

At the same time, many of these leaders have seen the power of social media to connect and inspire, particularly in the early years of social media platform development in the first decade or so of the millennium. Before business models matured, platforms were spaces that elevated the voices of communities marginalized for decades. These communities made platforms culturally relevant, before corporations felt the need to go mainstream. Still, some of our participants have hope that we can develop new platforms that prioritize our human and ancestral intelligences and remind us of how much we need each other.

Image credit: Shelby El-Otmani