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The Conversation
Sara Kells, Director of Program Management at IE Digital Learning and Adjunct Professor of Humanities, IE University

What ancient Athens teaches us about debate – and dissent – in the social media age

Monument to Socrates and Confucius in Athens, Greece. Collection Maykova/Shutterstock

In ancient Athens, the agora was a public forum where citizens could gather to deliberate, disagree and decide together. It was governed by deep-rooted social principles that ensured lively, inclusive, healthy debate.

Today, our public squares have moved online to the digital feeds and forums of social media. These spaces mostly lack communal rules and codes – instead, algorithms decide which voices rise above the clamour, and which are buried beneath it.

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