Podcast Summary: "Can Human Solidarity Survive Social Media and What If It Can’t?"

LSE: Public Lectures and Events | October 2, 2025

Episode Overview

This LSE public lecture convenes leading scholars Professor Nick Couldry and Baroness Beeban Kidron to interrogate a fundamental question: Is human solidarity possible in the age of social media, especially given how these technologies reshape our social spaces? Drawing from Prof. Couldry’s latest book, The Space of the World, and Baroness Kidron’s work in digital rights and regulation, the conversation explores the deep structural impacts of commercial social media on community, democracy, and collective action – and asks what might be required to reclaim the digital public sphere.

Key Speakers

• Professor Nick Couldry: Sociologist of media and culture; author of The Space of the World and co-author of Data Graph: The New Colonialism of Big Tech.
• Baroness Beeban Kidron: Crossbencher Peer at the UK House of Lords, advocate for children’s digital rights, founder of 5Rights Foundation.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "Space of the World" and Social Media’s Reconfiguration of Society

(03:45 - 18:00, Professor Nick Couldry)

• Couldry introduces the concept of "the space of the world": the aggregation of all possible social interactions as configured by digital platforms.
• Underscores a "radical and unplanned social experiment" beginning in the 1990s:
  • Mass connection of computers (the Internet)
  • Emergence of platforms (privately owned digital social spaces)
  • Global smartphone adoption resulting in continuous access
• Platforms (e.g., Instagram, Facebook) construct social spaces fundamentally different from physical ones:
  • “Instagram is a space of continuous data capture… a space that enables everyone to surveil everyone else continuously… brings each of us up very close to contents and people actually very far away from us.” (09:25)
• Unique properties of these spaces:
  • Distance and time are collapsed.
  • Constant surveillance and algorithmic tracking.
  • Engagement maximization above all else, irrespective of content quality.

2. Social Ills from Platform Design

(18:01 - 33:00, Professor Nick Couldry)

• Polarization (“Affective polarization”):
  • Platforms actively encourage group identities, amplifying emotions and differences—“a polarization machine.”
  • "Because human beings have a natural tendency to polarize… social media platforms are designed to maximize this." (25:20)
• Undermining of Truth:
  • Falsehoods travel further and faster than truths (“falsehoods spread faster, deeper, wider than truths” on Twitter, MIT study, 2018).
  • Democracies depend on some base shared truths; social media attacks "common knowledge," building distrust.
  • "We have allowed the industrialization of gossip." (29:10)
• Loss of Boundaries and Solidarity:
  • Healthy societies need both “boundaries and bridges”—social media dissolves the former without building the latter.
  • Exposure to toxic material, especially for children; undermines loci for new solidarities.
  • "Designs created for adults may not be appropriate for children. It means for nearly two decades, societies have allowed their most vulnerable members to be exposed to something that probably wasn't safe for them." (34:50, quoting the American Psychological Association)

3. Policy and Regulation: Radical and Incremental Responses

(33:01 - 46:40, Couldry & Kidron)

• Government and legislative responses so far (smartphone bans, age restrictions, UK Online Safety Act) considered necessary but insufficient.
• Couldry’s three bold proposals:
  1. End profit-driven design of social space (or support non-profit alternatives, e.g., Mastodon).
  2. Regulate scale: Disallow platform scalability that overrides healthy social boundaries. Enable interoperability and data portability.
  3. Avoid “more code” fixes: Strengthen and rebuild offline and small-scale community spaces as sites of healthy social media experiments.
• "Instead of today's misconnected space… we need… to collectively build a less toxic one." (36:51)

4. Reactions, Critiques, and the Need for Agency

(37:43 - 55:00, Baroness Kidron)

• Strong agreement on diagnosis: the toxic configuration of digital space is not merely an unfortunate outcome but a root problem.

• Appreciation for Couldry’s framing as transformation, not migration, of social space.

  • “We are enveloped in this space… it is not benign.” (41:45)

• Corporate narratives about their inevitability and progressiveness are critiqued.

• Digital colonialism as an analytic lens: "US firms have spread globally to extract as much profit as possible… it is unequivocal, and it's in their own words." (44:30)

• On solutions:

  • The scale of reform proposed is both “too ambitious” (may feel utopian given geopolitics) and “not ambitious enough” (lacking attention to breaking “tech exceptionalism”—e.g., treating platforms as businesses subject to domain-specific laws).
  • Cautions against underestimating the importance of incremental regulatory change (e.g., features mandated for child safety).
  • Celebrates the “proof of principle” that platforms can be compelled to change design.

• On solidarity: essential for tackling both social media’s harms and other collective action crises (e.g., climate change).

  • “Helplessness is designed into the products. We are not helpless, but we do have to take steps forward.” (54:36)

Audience Q&A Highlights

On Freedom of Expression and Distrust of Regulators

(63:19, Laura; 65:46, Couldry; 69:32, Kidron)

• Platforms invoke “freedom of expression” to resist regulation, but this often masks inequalities of reach and silencing of marginalized voices.
• Couldry: "Freedom of expression for who? There were so many people who are silenced by the polarizing force, particularly men against them on platforms. This is the real force on social media, the crushing of voice under the apparent freeing up of voice."
• Kidron: "There is no freedom of expression for me [as a woman critical of tech]—I just have to be off."

On Addiction and Agency

(65:00, Akanksha/Fiona; 65:46–73:06, Couldry & Kidron)

• Young people understand social media’s harms but find it hard to leave—similarities drawn to smoking and passive exposure.
• Design features (likes, constant validation) are inherently addictive.
• Couldry: "I’m very cautious as a sociologist about the individualizing of this story, which is so easy—those people are addicted. The problem is the whole thing."
• Kidron calls for agency: “What world do you want, guys? And what life do you want?…At some point I do think there's a sense of agency in this and… we've got to find solidarity.”

On Bottom-Up Change and Responsibility

(73:16–78:19, Online questions; 74:08, Couldry)

• Building collective practices in communities (schools, sports clubs) through non-profit social media or solidarity campaigns can be effective and empowering.
• Responsibility is multiple—primarily corporations ("blind social engineering"), then governments for regulatory failures, not individuals.

On "Techno-Feudalism" vs. Data Colonialism

(82:27–86:47, Jasmine Powell; Couldry & Kidron)

• Couldry prefers “data colonialism” over “techno-feudalism” to describe Big Tech’s extraction of human life, seeing a continuity of exploitative structures: "Tech has taken the social space as its source of its extraction, taken human life in a much more radical way than colonialism attempted in any previous point in history."
• Kidron: finds “techno-feudalism” useful as communicative shorthand about extraction and loss of agency, but ultimately agrees with colonialism as a more accurate analytic.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Prof. Nick Couldry:

  • “We have allowed the industrialization of gossip.” (29:10)
  • “Today, I believe we’re living in a new space of the world that… is overall toxic. It’s not healthy, it can’t be healthy.” (18:50)
  • “Instead of today’s misconnected space of the world, we need… to collectively build a less toxic one.” (36:51)
  • “We didn’t stop it happening because no one before in advance believed that the space of the world was something that could be designed by anyone or anything.” (15:54)

• Baroness Beeban Kidron:

  • “Helplessness is designed into the products. We are not helpless, but we do have to take steps forward.” (54:36)
  • “We made an equal mistake, which was to allow… to pretend [platforms] were not businesses. And in doing so, we allowed them to avoid their responsibility.” (51:09)
  • “Freedom of expression does generally mean the right to be heard as well as the right to speak. …tech is commercializing reach rather than speech.” (69:32)
  • "I think activism on behalf of other people as well as ourselves is really, really both enriching and an incredible learning experience… And that's where I think solidarity comes from." (81:55)

• Audience (paraphrased):

  • “Social media is becoming like smoking—you know it’s bad for you, but you can’t get away from passive exposure either.” (65:00, Fiona)

Thematic Takeaways

• Structural, not Individual, Problem: The crisis in solidarity is not a side-effect but a direct result of platforms’ profit-driven design of social space.
• Polarization and Isolation: Dynamics of group identity, algorithmic amplification, and monetized engagement deepen emotional divides and discourage collective action.
• Solidarity is Collective, Not Individual: Lasting change requires both bold regulation and grassroots solidarity practices, with particular urgency from and for young people.
• Responsibility: Lies mainly with platform corporations and governments, though agency and activism by individuals and communities are also essential.
• Regulation and Revolution: Existing policies are necessary but not sufficient; the challenge demands both incremental tech design changes and a shift in who controls and shapes social interaction.

Important Segments & Timestamps

• Introduction & Speakers (00:16 – 03:45)
• Concept of "Space of the World" (03:45 – 09:25)
• Platform Dynamics & Toxicity (09:25 – 15:54)
• Polarization & the "Polarization Machine" (25:00 – 27:45)
• Truth and Knowledge Crisis (28:10 – 31:45)
• Boundaries, Bridges, and Solidarity (31:50 – 36:51)
• Baroness Kidron’s Response (37:43 – 55:00)
• Q&A Highlights (63:19 – 86:47)

Conclusion

The episode asserts that if we are to preserve or rekindle human solidarity in the age of social media, we must recognize the profound, structural changes wrought by platforms. Their business models and designs have reordered our social spaces in ways that undermine collective trust, truth, and agency. Remedies must be similarly deep—combining bold regulation, redesign, and everyday, bottom-up acts of solidarity and refusal. As both speakers emphasize, the fate of solidarity is a public, not private, challenge—one demanding shared action, imagination, and the will to reclaim our digital future.