Tech & Democracy
Framing how modern technology is distorting democratic participation, power, and trust – and what we can do about it.
The internet and digital technologies have reshaped American society, with vast impacts on how we do business, live our personal lives, and engage with our communities. Technology has also radically changed how citizens receive and share information and participate in politics.
These changes have inevitably altered the nature of democracy – and the story has largely been a grim one. The technology infrastructure we build shapes who is heard, who has advantages, and who bears risk when things go wrong. For people working for freedom and democracy under increasingly threatening conditions, these dynamics are no longer abstract. If this all feels overwhelming or destabilizing, that reaction is rational.
This section focuses on strategic analysis and framing, not tools or tactics. Its purpose is to share how we think about technology’s effects on democratic life, why well-intentioned systems so often produce harmful outcomes, and what it might take to do better.
Our view: why technology is undermining democracy
Unrestrained digital technologies are increasingly toxic to American democracy. The shared reality democratic societies depend on is fractured by disinformation, algorithmic amplification, and echo chambers that dehumanize and disconnect citizens from their neighbors. Democratic participation and freedom of expression are chilled by online harassment and unconstrained law enforcement, particularly in marginalized communities.
These dynamics are accelerating. Artificial intelligence amplifies existing failures at scale, while chronic cybersecurity failures continue to erode privacy and trust. Much of our country's core infrastructure for communication and information sharing is owned and manipulated by a small number of the richest people in the world.
If American democracy is to survive the digital age, we need to do more than curb the obvious abuses. We need pro-social technologies and new institutions that protect participation, rebuild civic trust, and apply the positive potential of technology to reimagine a pluralistic, accountable, and humane society.
Key dynamics worth understanding
The failures we are seeing are not isolated bugs or the result of a few bad actors. They are recurring patterns that emerge when powerful technologies are deployed without sufficient attention to incentives, governance, and human cost.
- Fragmented shared reality: Systems that reward engagement over accuracy undermine the common ground democratic deliberation requires.
- Harassment as participation suppression: Coordinated abuse functions as a structural deterrent to speech, organizing, and civic involvement.
- Surveillance and chilling effects: Expanding monitoring — public and private — discourages political participation.
- Power concentration: Dependence on a small number of platforms and vendors shifts risk onto users least able to bear it.
- AI as a force multiplier: Machine-driven systems accelerate existing harms rather than resolving their underlying causes.
Tradeoffs, not silver bullets
Many of the hardest problems at the intersection of technology and democracy involve real tradeoffs: scale versus accountability, safety versus privacy, efficiency versus deliberation. There are no clean solutions, and pretending otherwise tends to make things worse. If this was easy, it would have been solved already. Clear-eyed analysis of the genuine difficulties, coupled with an iconoclastic approach to reimagining our political institutions, is required if we are to build democratic systems that serve all Americans in our digital age.
This section is intentionally analytical. It’s meant to help make sense of how technology is reshaping democratic life, and why so many well-intentioned systems produce harmful outcomes. For practical tools and step-by-step guidance, see the other sections of the site.