The Digital Republic

What to do with Big Tech is one of the enduring questions of today. In The Digital Republic, Jamie Susskind argues that it is time to deal with 'the unaccountable power of digital technology' and offers a primer of how law and governance could be harnessed to reshape Big Tech * Financial Times * This is the book America needs now. Susskind thinks deeply, and writes with powerful clarity, about how technology is reshaping society and what we should do about it -- Bruce Schneier, author of CLICK HERE TO KILL EVERYBODY The Digital Republic highlights what is at stake amidst digital disruption: the very foundations of our open, rules-based democracies. By focusing back on core principles such as legitimacy, accountability and countervailing powers, Susskind finds inspiration to secure what should not be disrupted, and reimagines the role of laws in a digitized, global context -- Marietje Schaake, international policy director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center The digital revolution threatens to overturn democracy. But we can still do something about it. This book is the blueprint, philosophical and practical, on how to remake our online society to make sure democracy prevails -- Peter Pomerantsev, author of THIS IS NOT PROPAGANDA An important, well-written and well-timed book. The extraordinary power held by a handful of vast digital companies affects everything from the dynamics of markets to the health of democracy. But political theorists have struggled to understand the technologies while the technologists have often been blind to the implications of their own actions. After a flood of books offering diagnosis and hand-wringing, we badly needed ideas about what to do: here Jamie Susskind does just that, linking vivid examples, thoughtful principles and, crucially, practical prescriptions to guide us in ensuring that powerful technologies really do serve us well -- Sir Geoff Mulgan CBE, CBE is Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at University College London Susskind does a sophisticated job diagnosing the core problem of how many technologies affect our lives today: unaccountable power. And while there is no magical solution, he provides a compelling roadmap for taking that power back so we can reshape our digital world to better serve the public -- Yael Eisenstat, Future of Democracy Fellow at the Berggruen Institute In focussing on the potential solutions available to govern and regulate the digital realm, [Susskind's] book makes a truly novel contribution to the existing body of literature on the now well-documented harms and pitfalls of the existing data economy. This readable primer will appeal to policymakers, law students and lawyers, and technologists alike, and act as a roadmap for anyone wondering how law and governance can reshape Big Tech, harness platform power, end extractive data practices, and ground an ecosystem of new technologies that empowers, rather than exploits, people -- Carly Kind, director of the Ada Lovelace Institute