Issue One convenes CRSM to find ways to protect and strengthen U.S. democracy

This week, Issue One and the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative — which focuses on bridging research, education, and policy work to protect democracy at home and abroad — convened the Council for Responsible Social Media (CRSM) at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. CRSM discussed navigating technology’s influential role in our democracy and fostering a healthier online environment. Issue One CEO and Founder Nick Penniman provided the following statement on the convening:

“Large social media companies have been immensely successful in advancing a false narrative about who they are in order to exploit Americans. They refer to themselves as platforms — implying neutrality — even though they regularly use algorithms to boost content and make choices about what people see in their feeds akin to traditional publishers. In fact, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself even recently admitted that social media companies are no longer social and play the role in society that traditional media outlets once did. Yet, by calling themselves platforms, they have managed to avoid some of the most basic consumer protection rules that safeguard against harms in every other industry. The result is that these companies have been allowed to deliberately design dangerous products that addict the American people on a mass scale, dividing us, making us hate each other, and, in some cases, costing lives.”

Issue One’s Vice President of Advocacy Alix Fraser added: “The battle between preserving our nearly 250-year-old republic and descending into authoritarianism is playing out in our online information ecosystem. Americans no longer have a sense of shared reality, and without that, it has become nearly impossible to trust each other and exercise self-governance. The Council for Responsible Social Media recognizes that we must address these existential threats in order to preserve our democracy.”

“Americans are sick and tired of discord and division and not being able to tell the truth from falsehoods,” said CRSM Co-chair and former Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO). “The Council for Responsible Social Media is channeling this energy into creating a crosspartisan coalition of Americans to pressure Congress to take action to rein in the influence of Big Tech money in politics, enact commonsense guardrails, and protect our democracy. While these companies and their billionaire CEOs are some of the wealthiest and most powerful entities in human history, the power of the people is still stronger. We can demand a healthy online information environment that fosters a sense of shared reality, allows us to live freely, and creates a brighter future.”

During the convening, CRSM also welcomed six new council members with expertise in upholding civil society and democracy building initiatives.

• Roberta Braga, Founder and Executive Director of the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas
• Caitriona Fitzgerald, Deputy Director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
• Sasha Havlichek, Co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue
• Ravi Iyer, Managing Director at the Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making
• Tim Love, Former Vice Chairman of Omnicom Group
• Olivier Sylvain, Professor of Law at Fordham University and a Senior Policy Research Fellow at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute