The People's Platform

In The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Astra Taylor challenges the idea that the internet is inherently democratizing, showing how corporate consolidation, algorithmic curation, and precarious digital labor concentrate cultural and economic power. She explains how platforms extract value from free content and data, erode public institutions, and narrow the range of cultural expression, arguing that technological optimism can obscure growing inequality. Blending historical analysis, reportage, and moral critique, Taylor makes a case for political and policy interventions—stronger antitrust enforcement, public media investment, and protection for creative labor—to reclaim a democratic digital commons.