Strategy: Digital Democracy

To support Free Press in their work to create a new deal for the digital age with a focus on racial and gender equity. This grant will advance the work of Change the Terms, a coalition co-founded and co-led by Free Press, in organizing stakeholders from civil society, government, and technology to hold platforms accountable through a public-facing campaign aimed at pressuring companies to make changes on a range of issues, including content moderation and advertising policies.  

To provide support to Media Democracy Fund, a fiscally sponsored project of the New Venture Fund, to further the NetGain Partnership which supports philanthropic collaboration and leadership regarding issues of technology and society, and to support engagement of organizations led by and serving communities of color in debates around platforms, power, and the public interest.

To support the Media, Inequality and Change Center’s (MIC) Compass Fellowship Program in continuing to strengthen the ties between academia and practice on tech and telecom issues.

This grant will support initial research into the surveillance, experimentation, and persuasion capabilities of platforms such as Facebook and Google and the ways we can prevent or mitigate the use of these capabilities by authoritarians. The initial funding will support the development of a plan for an academic center devoted to these issues as well as the hiring of research support staff for the primary investigator.

The Assessment of the Impact of Social Media on the Health and Wellbeing of Adolescents and Children project will examine the current research and make conclusions about the impact of social media on the health and wellbeing of adolescents and children.

To support Ranking Digital Rights, a project of New America Foundation, in their effort to categorize, catalog, and assess the human rights impact of the practices of social media giants in the United States through the Ranking Digital Rights Corporate Accountability Index. 

To support research that can contribute to a convincing body of evidence that can inform stakeholders in media, industry, and government on how to most effectively design and regulate online spaces in a way that limits threats to democracy.