“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, to whom it occurred to say this is mine, and found people sufficiently simple to believe him was the true founder of civil society.” This iconic saying of Jean-Jacques Rousseau does not address the foundation of civil society as a celebrated event in the speculative history of the humankind. For Rousseau, it is rather a catastrophic turn in that it has sown the seeds of inequality among human beings. The question whether the commons that came to be partitioned among humans led to a better societal life remains unresolved.

This paper proposes a new normative framework to think about Big Tech reform. Focusing on the case of digital communication, I argue that rethinking the corporate purpose of social media companies is a distinctive entry point to the debate on how to render the powers of tech corporations democratically legitimate. I contend that we need to strive for a reform that redefines the corporate purpose of social media companies. In this view, their purpose should be to create and maintain a free, egalitarian, and democratic public sphere rather than profit seeking.

Digital platforms increasingly mediate social, economic, and other forms of human interactions, which puts them in a position to influence the power dynamics and moral values that shape these interactions. This paper focuses on the platform and sharing economy – an economic model, in which digital platforms facilitate social and economic interactions. Its two central models, mainstream and cooperative platforms, offer similar applications and services. However, they fundamentally differ in aspects such as ownership and governance structures, economic models, and technical designs.