John P. Wihbey has spent years studying how digital platforms reshape public discourse and political power. In this conversation, he addresses the governance gap at the heart of the information age — and why the solutions being proposed are not yet equal to the problem.
John Wihbey’s Governing Babel confronts the central problem of the digital age: social media platforms have become the public square, and nobody elected them. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why content moderation is a political problem, not a technical one.
India had a democratic tradition worth defending. What has been surrendered — press freedom, judicial independence, minority protections — was not lost in a coup. It was given away incrementally, each compromise justified by the next election. The ground, once lost, is hard to recover.
The Taliban have governed Afghanistan for years now. The international community's attention has moved on. What remains is a population — particularly women and girls — living under one of the most restrictive governments on earth, mostly out of sight of those who promised to care.
Foreign ministries once communicated through cables and communiqués. Now they tweet. Social media has democratised diplomatic communication and made it instantaneous — and made diplomacy noisier, faster and far more vulnerable to misreading and manipulation.
