Restoring Sanity Online: Policy & Practice

This capstone unit synthesizes technical, ethical, and policy concepts from earlier units to produce actionable reforms for digital governance. Students explore Web3 realities and limits, privacy and verification trade-offs, moderation versus free speech tensions, accountability structures, and sustainable revenue models for creators, and translate those insights into legislative advice and community implementation plans.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and compare at least three governance models (centralized corporate platforms, decentralized Web3 architectures, and hybrid accountability networks) and assess their impacts on privacy, content moderation, creator revenue, and civic discourse
• Evaluate privacy, identity verification, AI moderation, and child-protection strategies to recommend balanced policies that protect users while preserving free expression and accountability
• Apply principles of public policy and digital governance to develop a practical implementation plan that details accountability structures, legislative proposals, stakeholder roles, and revenue mechanisms for restoring healthier online ecosystems
• Demonstrate advocacy and communication skills by preparing and presenting an evidence-based brief and outreach strategy to legislators and community stakeholders, including measurable metrics for evaluating impact