Abstract

The subject of this article is the transformation of the public sphere in the age of digital platforms and the implications this has for democratic life building on Habermas’ recent considerations of this change, the political implications and contradictions of the nexus between a normative, hopefully functioning public sphere for democracy, with reason at its center, and a digital public sphere marked by the decline of political life and the difficulty of fragmented networked debate marked by the fading distinction between public and private are analyzed. Habermas’ idea is that the perception of the political public sphere is warped by communication on platforms and thus the formation of opinions and political will is in danger. This article analyzes the risks and potentials of the platform society in a diachronic view, addressing the issue of algorithmic secrecy and regulation