“What is the fate of democracy on the internet itself? That is, do we experience democracy online? Are the services you use or the communities you’re part of or the terms of service you sign meaningfully democratic? Online communities do not tend to establish juries, elected boards, bylaws, referendums or other procedures of self-governance. Cases where such structures do exist, like Wikipedia, are outliers.”

In this article, the authors argue that instead of comparing the internet's lack of accountability unfavourably with the trappings of modern democracy, we should be comparing it with earlier forms of democracy, which were a lot messier. This reframe opens up new possibilities, like opinion polling through AI, cryptographic juries and the dynamic selection of delegates in real-time, issue by issue.