<aside>
</aside>
<aside>
</aside>
<aside>
</aside>
Project Liberty Institute (PLI) and GU’s Tech & Public Policy (TPP) program are delighted to co-host a workshop on on Deliberation, Governance and Decentralized Social Networks November 06-07, 2025 at Georgetown’s Capitol Campus. Please use this website to find up-to-date event information and remember to register by Oct. 15.
Workshop description
Project Liberty Institute is committed to helping build a “People’s Internet” - a decentralized alternative to today’s Big-Tech dominated digital economy. A People’s Internet includes people exercising meaningful control over their digital lives, freely entering and exiting online communities, and having a voice in the governance of digital platforms and services. This last is the primary focus of the workshop.
The advent of AI-assisted forms of deliberation make this an especially exciting, and promising, time to explore accessible, affordable and scalable solutions to the challenge of participatory decision-making in decentralized online communities.
The workshop brings together researchers and practitioners who have extensive experience and deep knowledge of deliberation, including its transition to online formats and the use of AI to facilitate dialogue, decision-making and community-building.
The workshop is organized into a series of topical discussions, each meant to surface insights into the advantages – and limitations – of current deliberative techniques and technologies – and their potential application for how we build resilient, decentralized online communities.
We hope that the workshop is the beginning of a collaborative journey to test and improve practical solutions for participatory governance in a new People’s Internet.
🗓️ November 06-07, 2025
📍 McCourt School of Public Policy (E 125 St NW, Washington, D.C. 20001)
Day 1 Overview
In collaboration with several of PLI’s academic partners and colleagues, who have designed and deployed deliberative platforms, Day One will entail a mock-exercise in community-based online deliberation. An invited group of graduate students from the McCourt School of Public Policy, and possibly additional Georgetown degree programs, will be invited to participate in a deliberation using partners’ online deliberative platforms.
The objective of the exercise is to provide participants with first-hand experiences of deliberation, including AI-assisted techniques, and to solicit feedback regarding the degree to which people felt heard, understood the views of others, and felt the results were fair and legitimate. Participants will present key takeaways and questions about online deliberation to Day Two’s invited experts during a reception at the McCourt School the evening of Day One. Participant feedback will be referenced throughout Day Two, at appropriate moments.