Our new public health crisis: Knight’s millions aim to detoxify the internet

The Knight Foundation is investing millions into a new field of research, with the not-so-modest aim of addressing “one of the biggest issues that democracy is facing in our time.” Fifty years after that first connection, the internet has become famous for connecting and informing the world—and for growing monopoly fears, privacy violations, and the spread of toxic speech, disinformation, and perhaps impeachment-worthy conspiracy theories. Don’t think of these problems as merely digital,...