I am the founder of the Great Canadian Shield project, which advocates for the creation of public digital social infrastructure in Canada. My proposal (the 45-minutes video above) has attracted interest from both Canada and Europe, where officials and academics have requested the proposal in writing.
In this article, I will explain why it is high time for modern democracies to have their own digital social infrastructures, by outlining how it can serve as a foundational framework to strengthen democracy, drive innovation, ensure digital sovereignty, and reduce wealth inequality.
By digital social infrastructure, I mean a public network platform that is at least partially funded by the government. The goal is to reduce profit-driven motives and create a platform that genuinely serves the public interest.
It may be helpful to think of this as the digital counterpart to traditional public infrastructure—such as roads and transportation systems. Just as the flow of physical goods depends on publicly supported infrastructure, the flow of information—which plays an increasingly vital role in today's digital economy—should also be safeguarded by the public sector.
Freed from the obligation to generate profits for shareholders, such a platform would operate on a fundamentally different paradigm from today's commercially driven social networks. In my original video proposal, I explored what this platform could look like in greater detail, including a demo of the frontend. At its core, the platform would prioritize community building and meaningful interaction. It would allow people to express their full humanity—unlike the fragmented, addiction-based content culture that dominates today's profit-centered social media landscape.
Our current parliamentary democracy has remained largely unchanged since the early 19th century. It is a geographically based system of representation, designed for a time when neither people nor information could travel far. Today, this model is so outdated that it often represses public voices more than it lends an ear to them.
In our fast-paced digital age—where many people barely know their neighbors—shared values, beliefs, and identities often matter more than physical proximity. People are increasingly drawn together by political affiliation, cultural background, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or the intersection of these factors, rather than by geography alone.
People with minority identities or attributes are often underrepresented in their local constituencies, even though they may form a significant population at a larger political level. Despite this, their concerns must still be filtered through a local representative—who is often too busy or politically constrained to prioritize their needs. And even if there is one representative who genuinely cares about their issue, that person is more often than not from a different constituency and therefore not permitted to act on their behalf.
This makes it difficult for public concerns to flow upward through the system, resulting in a government that is disconnected from the people. At best, this leads to public frustration; at worst, it represents a failure of democracy itself.
In Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau was forced to resign amid a striking disconnect from a population in crisis. Meanwhile, the Albertan separatist movement continues to grow in response to what it perceives as the persistent tyranny of the majority centered in Ottawa.
Given today's advanced technology and increasingly pluralistic society, there should be—at the very least—a consultation platform where citizens can directly express their concerns and desires.
A digital democratic platform like this already exists in Taiwan. It was born out of sheer frustration during the Sunflower Movement, led by tech-savvy Taiwanese citizens at a time when their democratically elected government had a dismal 9% approval rating.
The platform quickly gained widespread popularity, with participation from over 80% of the population. It provided unprecedented visibility into the public's priorities and desires—insight that the government could no longer afford to ignore. In fact, all political parties eventually had to align their platforms with the views expressed on the system if they wanted to remain electable.
If we had our own public social network platform, it could serve as a powerful tool for participatory democracy. Not only would it capture the will of the people, but it could also incorporate existing demographic data to support fairer, more informed decisions that maximize collective satisfaction.
Our entire society operates on a single social contract: share money only if it can generate more in return. What could possibly go wrong?
Wealth inequality is poised to grow significantly in the age of AI, as economic power becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. At the same time, the cost of living continues to rise, and many face the prospect of job displacement. Prominent AI leaders—including Elon Musk and Sam Altman—have warned that some form of universal basic income (UBI) may be necessary to prevent societal collapse.
To date, no country has successfully implemented UBI at scale, and the concept presents its own set of challenges. A more practical and immediately actionable alternative would be to enable resource sharing for reasons beyond profit.
A digital infrastructure can support this shift by fostering genuine community building. It allows like-minded individuals to connect, collaborate, and hold one another accountable in the management of shared resources. Within strong communities, people are often motivated to contribute—not for monetary gain, but out of compassion, a desire for recognition or status, a commitment to collective well-being, or through the many and unique social contracts that naturally emerge within each group.
Canada's job market has descended into a Hunger Games-like state, with hundreds of applicants competing for a single position. As AI continues to replace a growing share of human labor, we must begin to shift away from valuing people solely for skills and knowledge that are increasingly easy to automate. Instead, it's time to recognize and invest in the rich, multifaceted potential of human beings.
This may even call for a return to more human-centered notions of progress—those rooted in the ideals of Ancient Greece or Renaissance Italy. Rather than remaining fixated on machine-like optimization, perpetual growth, and consumption, we should strive for a more balanced vision of progress: one guided by our instinct for beauty, wonder, curiosity, and the search for meaning. This innate spirit can be expressed through art, science, philosophy, and other forms as enabled by modern technology.
But for such a shift to occur, we need platforms that first allow us to express our humanity. Today's profit-driven social media systems divide us and dull our senses with dopamine-fueled content designed for maximum engagement, not genuine connection. A public digital infrastructure would offer an alternative: a space for people to reconnect with what makes us human. Whether it's wealth inequality or other pressing issues, sustainable development can only be achieved when our moral progress keeps pace with our technological one.
I had the opportunity to present my project to a representative from the European Commission, who recommended that I apply to Horizon Europe—a €96 billion funding program designed to foster innovation across the continent.
While I am amazed by the scale and generosity of the funding, I couldn't help but notice the program's somewhat rigid and top-down structure. It is organized into clusters of targeted technological areas that the EU seeks to advance, each with predefined budgets, goals, criteria, and constant monitoring. The approach feels reminiscent of a planned economy—only this time applied to innovation. Just as centrally planned economies have historically struggled to match the dynamism of market-driven ones, I am skeptical that Horizon Europe will produce transformative companies on the scale of Apple, Amazon, or Google.
There is significantly more regulation of tech companies in Europe than in the U.S. Given Europe's unique history and geopolitical context, it tends to prioritize sustainability, cooperation, and fairness. I have no doubt that, in the long run, companies that embrace these values will prove more beneficial to society. But in the short term, they are often stifled at birth by their cutthroat American counterparts. In a capitalist system where the winner takes all, this means that many promising European innovations never see the light of day.
The solution cannot consist of pouring billions into forced innovation year after year, but to level the playing field by cultivating an environment that naturally fosters innovation. People each hold a piece of the innovation puzzle—whether it's an idea, a skill, experience, passion, capital, or else. Innovation emerges organically when there's a platform that allows them to find and collaborate with one another. In a city or country of millions, imagine how many Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak-type pairings could be formed.
If Europe wants to compete with the U.S., it must lean into its strengths. A digital infrastructure that embraces collective values over individualism will provide the required edge by fundamentally reshaping the innovation landscape and allowing European ingenuity to thrive.
And since we can't talk about innovation today without addressing AI, here's a bonus point: social networking platforms inherently double as AI companies due to their data-intensive nature. In fact, AI companies are now so data-starved that even OpenAI has reportedly considered creating its own social platform to access more training data.
A publicly funded digital social infrastructure—one designed to foster meaningful human interaction and evolve alongside the communities it serves—could become a continuous, high-quality source of training data. Beyond that, many of its features would be enhanced or powered by AI. In this light, investing in such infrastructure is also a strategic investment in the future of AI.
Under the administration of Donald Trump, the United States has pursued a zero-sum approach—even toward its allies—marked by a troubling alignment between the government and tech oligarchs to advance American interests with an unprecedented aggressiveness.
Canada is already experiencing the effects of U.S. economic pressure as part of its broader annexation strategy. If this economic warfare is followed by an information campaign—where American platforms promote pro-U.S. narratives while suppressing pro-Canadian voices—Canadians will have little recourse, given their heavy dependence on American-owned social media.
As for Europe, the monopolistic nature of U.S. tech giants has repeatedly clashed with EU antitrust laws, leading to billions in fines and mounting tensions. Just as American platforms have supported Trump's aggressive stance toward Canada, they now expect a harsher stance from the Trump administration against Europe.
It is no surprise, then, that leaders and citizens in both Canada and Europe are increasingly calling for the creation of independent, sovereign digital platforms. Our values and digital autonomy are too vital to be left at the mercy of whichever president Americans elect, or of their tech oligarchs.
As a Canadian who consumes a significant amount of American media, I've witnessed firsthand the shift in U.S. political and cultural discourse—even before Donald Trump's second term. The conversation has moved away from themes of peacebuilding and shared prosperity. Instead, the dominant narrative now emphasizes “winning”, commanding respect, and putting America first.
I believe this shift is rooted in the structural demands of the American economy, which depends on constant growth to uphold the capitalist promise of ever-increasing wealth. With rising inequality and growing public frustration, pressure is mounting on the ruling class. In response, the oligarch-led government appears to be deflecting blame outward—vilifying other nations to justify aggressive economic tactics that open new markets for their insatiable wealth extraction.
All of this leads me to a pessimistic view of the United States' reliability as a partner in the foreseeable future. Establishing our own public digital social infrastructure is not just a matter of cultural autonomy or innovation, but also a matter of national security.
If we want to improve the world in a comprehensive and meaningful way, I believe the most effective and easiest path is to build a public social network—one capable of setting off a snowball effect of transformative change.
The logic is simple: rather than attempting to solve problems for the people, it empowers people to solve their own. Given the complexity of the challenges we face today—and how many of them continue to worsen—it is no longer realistic to rely solely on a handful of smart leaders to find all the answers. Instead, we must unlock the collective potential of the population and enable a plurality of ideas to take shape and flourish—whether in the realms of democracy, wealth inequality, innovation, digital sovereignty, or beyond. If we want to achieve sustainable progress as a society, the individuals within it must also grow in conscience, morality, and empathy—not just in terms of technological advancement. But such growth doesn't occur in a vacuum; it can only happen when people cultivate humane relationships with others. In other words, we need to restore the community by leveraging social technology for the good.
Of course, such an undertaking comes with risks. But in my view, the cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of trying—and if approached strategically, the financial investment required could be reduced to a fraction of what we spend on less impactful initiatives.
Here is what I propose:
We begin by selecting a single city or small state—whether in Canada, Europe, or any democratic nation—and launch the initiative as a digital democratic platform, similar to the successful model currently used in Taiwan.
Once the initial platform is established and gaining traction, the next logical step is to expand from citizen-to-government interactions to citizen-to-citizen interactions. This evolution would mark the transition toward a full-fledged public social network—built for the people, by the people.
Should this pilot prove successful—and I have every confidence it will—other cities will naturally want to adopt it as well. From there, we can expand the platform organically across the country or region.
The greatest challenge lies in building a social platform compelling enough to draw users away from the dominant big tech networks. As I explained in my video proposal, this is exactly what I've been focused on over the past decade in my work as a digital social architect. I am fully confident in my ability to lead this effort.
In other words, the only thing standing between this vision and reality is a single act of governmental support—whether at the municipal, national, or other level.
If you are someone, or represent an organization, interested in collaborating on this mission, please don't hesitate to reach out via my email below.
Thank you,
Sean Luo
greatcanadianshield@gmail.com