# Carole Cadwalladr's TED Talk Exposes a Digital Coup—Here's What We Can Do About It *The platforms are winning. Democracy is losing. It's time for a new kind of resistance—digital, decentralized, and deliberate.* Carole Cadwalladr's new TED Talk hit like a gut punch. It's not a warning—it's an obituary. And the thing that's died, or at least been seriously wounded, is our collective ability to hold power to account. Not because people stopped caring. Not because democracy stopped mattering. But because the infrastructure of our shared reality—what we see, what we believe, who we trust—has been quietly captured by systems that don't answer to the public at all. She calls it a digital coup. I think she's right. But I also think we're still treating it like a fringe concern when it should be a five-alarm fire. We're watching democracy degrade in real time. Not because people are storming buildings with weapons, but because a [[american-oligarchy-bezos-ai-factories|handful of unelected executives]] have more influence over public opinion than most governments do. These are people who never campaigned for our trust, never earned it, and have no real mechanism to be held accountable when they break it. That's not just a glitch. That's the new operating system. And unless we actively choose to rewrite it, it's going to stay this way. What struck me about Cadwalladr's talk wasn't just the specificity of her reporting or the clarity of her case—it was the sense that this isn't even radical anymore. It's just late. Everyone who's been paying attention knows this is happening. The question is what we do now, knowing the systems we rely on for communication, discourse, and even basic truth are designed to [[Confirmation Bias Is the Real Risk in Personalized AI|manipulate us]], fragment us, and keep us scrolling. What do we build in response? To me, the first step is letting go of the fantasy that the platforms will fix themselves. They won't. They were built to do exactly what they're doing: harvest attention, convert it into profit, and externalize the cost to society. Any meaningful change has to come from outside those walls. But that doesn't mean we wait for government. If we want different systems, we have to build them. Systems that are decentralized, open, and governed by the people who use them. Systems that don't optimize for outrage or virality, but for value, relevance, even empathy. I believe that's possible. In fact, I think the rise of [[why-im-a-techno-optimist-in-the-age-of-ai|AI—used thoughtfully]]—might be our best shot. Used well, AI gives us the chance to design tools that serve people, not advertisers. Imagine systems that help you understand what's really happening in the world—not just what's trending. Imagine collaborative environments where your knowledge and contributions are respected, where you control your data, where your digital life is your own. Imagine media ecosystems that help surface underrepresented voices instead of suppressing them. None of that is science fiction. The technology exists. What's missing is the incentive structure to build it at scale—and the cultural will to demand it. One of the things I keep coming back to is this: the problem isn't just [[humanity-self-destruction|misinformation or manipulation]]. It's enclosure. We've allowed a few entities to privatize the public square. They've captured the terrain of modern life, and now they're charging rent in the form of attention, data, and agency. Reversing that means creating new commons. New institutions. New forms of legitimacy. That's not a regulatory tweak. It's a generational project. I believe in a future where we don't just fight for better algorithms—we fight for better architectures. Where trust is earned, not farmed. Where technology amplifies collective intelligence instead of suppressing dissent. And where the systems we depend on are as transparent and accountable as we expect our governments to be (revisiting [[the-social-contract|the social contract]] in the digital age). That won't happen overnight. But the alternative is accepting the status quo—and if Cadwalladr's right, that's not a neutral act. That's surrender. So no, I don't think we can "fix" Facebook or Google or TikTok. I think we need to outgrow them. We need to build systems that align with the kind of society we want, not the kind of profit margins shareholders demand. And that means investing in public-interest infrastructure. Championing open-source alternatives. Prioritizing digital literacy like it's public health. Training AI not just to drive conversions but to deepen understanding. Elevating creators and coders who are trying to build something better—even if it doesn't scale like surveillance capitalism does. None of this is easy. But we already know what happens if we do nothing. We've seen the consequences of inaction. We're living in them now. --- *This thought was planted on 13 Apr 2025 and last watered on 13 Apr 2025.*