2016-10-19

Twitter as a Platform Cooperative?

At re:publica TEN, Trebor Scholz, associate professor at the New School in New York City, already presented some interesting ideas on how to counteract the dominance of large tech companies from Silicon Valley – for instance the concept of platform cooperativism.
And now it just so happens that Twitter is for sale – so why not add a bit more of that communal spirit to the Internet, and organize Twitter as a cooperative? After all, the German newspaper taz has been doing so for decades, selling company shares to supporters and comrades. What would happen if users got to decide for themselves, if the social platform Twitter was owned and at least in part managed by the users themselves?
At re:publica Dublin, Eugenia Siapera, Senior Lecturer at the School of Communications at Dublin City University, Sam Toland, Head of Co-operative Development for the Resonate Festival, Thomas Euler, CEO of Eck Consulting, and Johnny Haeusler, co-founder of re:publica, will be sharing a stage to discuss the question: “#BuyTwitter – Can Platform Cooperativism Save Our Favourite Social Network?”. Looking forward to an exciting debate! Read Johnny's short column about the issue here (in German and English) and another article over here.

#BuyTwitter – Can Platform Cooperativism Save Our Favourite Social Network?
Session: Thursday from 4:00 pm to 4:45 pm at the Generator Hostel

Image credit: Eugenia Siapera