Listen to the American Citizens Summit panel: Online Technologies and Communities

Thank you for everyone who listened to or participated in the American Citizens Summit, and especially our panel Online Technologies and Communities. For those who missed it, you can listen to our panel discussion here. In this discussion, you will learn about how our technology and how we use it may provide the greatest opportunity to reverse the divisive trends we are seeing in order to build a better future together.

This particular discussion digs into how technology has been a key driver, and can be a critical solution, to the growing polarization and division in America. Representing AllSides and seeing this in the context of how our communication technologies and radically changed since I was at Netscape in the early days of the Internet and World Wide Web, I described how things "went wrong" and how they can be turned around. Historically speaking, this is very similar to the another great technology that changed our world, the printing press. In the early years of that ground breaking technology, the printing press actually increased chaos, confusion and divisions in society. After society learned how to use that technology, it began to bring us forward to a new and better world - it launched the Reformation.

The other panelists also had some powerful observations and provide opportunities for us to move the country forward. Listen to and visit the websites for Deborah Devedjian of TheChisel, Richard Lang of Democrosoft, and Steven Kull of the University of Maryland and founder of Voices of the People.

This interview is part of the American Citizens Summit, a free online event featuring respected political leaders, grassroots visionaries, business pioneers, change agents and advocates who are leading the way to actualize the full power of democracy by building bridges across divides. For more information, please visit americancitizenssummit.com. This recording is a copyright of The Shift Network. All rights reserved.