Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World

They revisit some of the medium design perspectives considered thus far—generating interplay rather than solution, entangling networks, and multiplying problems—with particular attention to moves that reduce violence in organizations.

But in the campaign to be dominant and capture as much market share as possible, Facebook and other platforms introduced a consequential binary. The “like/dislike” and “friend/unfriend” filters—not just a reflection of social inclusion or exclusion—allow the company to sell data about trends and preferences. Likes can be used to exaggerate the differences between groups and sharpen the weapons of discord and hate between them, as they were in the 2016 election interference mentioned earlier. But, remarkably, debates about the situation continually return to conundrums over free speech rather than targeting the monetizing binary that artificially exaggerates that speech.

Even Franklin D. Roosevelt, expressing skepticism about economic theory, introduced his New Deal with a call for know-how: “The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”22