GEOU 360 Tech: Innovation, Security, & Governance

360 Tech convenes a cross-sectoral multidisciplinary Task Force in a series of Innovation Labs to develop and test governance models that can help address social media's risks. Our goal with this project was to tackle these connected issues as they are likely to manifest themselves in the future. After a deep dive review of the hundreds of studies and reports looking at social media and the underlying technologies, we discovered that virtually all of them are backward looking, focused, for example, on disinformation/misinformation and the 2016 and 2020 elections. We took a different approach. Starting with deep research and over 60 interviews of very diverse stakeholders, we developed alternative future scenarios to push our Task Force - made up of a cross-section of decision makers, subject matter experts, and representatives of diverse sectors and disciplines - to “think forward and think differently” about how the risks and opportunities of social media will play out over the next 3-5 and even 10 years. We interviewed across racial, gender, age, geographic, able-bodiedness, and socioeconomic lines. Fundamentally, we wanted to ensure that every aspect of American online life was reflected and represented in our project.