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` tags between each section: For four years, the Berkman Klein Center has united skilled engineers and top academics to fix social media. Started in 2021 and 2023, the Institute for Rebooting Social Media (RSM) and the Applied Social Media Lab (ASML) create real-world solutions like policies, tools, and platforms to improve online learning, debates, and coexistence. Led by Professors James Mickens and Jonathan Zittrain, these initiatives tackle issues like misinformation, heated identity debates, and political unrest spilling offline. Since 2022, RSM’s Visiting Scholars program has hosted 23 prominent professors working on platform regulation, online economy, and well-being. Current projects include replacing Section 230, tracking X’s Community Notes, and building tools to boost youth algorithmic literacy. RSM and ASML also host events on trust, safety, AI moderation, and online conspiracies, aiming to build a lasting community focused on meaningful social media improvements.

The Berkman Klein Center's RSM and ASML initiatives host events and workshops to explore complex social media issues and challenge assumptions about creating change. ASML's whistleblowing workshop united technologists, lawyers, and whistleblowers, yielding insights that shaped future projects. Effective social media improvement requires collaboration between hypotheses, code, and tools, informed by the communities they serve. RSM and ASML lead this effort, encouraging others to join. RSM, a three-year initiative, tackles urgent social media problems through interdisciplinary collaboration, offering programs and events to support experts and challenge the status quo. ASML focuses on civil discourse spaces, transparency tools, safety apps, and interoperable software, fostering a community of technologists to build public-interest social media tools without corporate constraints.

Professor Charles Nesson leads Nymspace, a platform where people can talk openly using fake names. It believes honest discussions need trust and hiding real identities, especially in learning settings. Nymspace creates a safe space for sharing ideas without personal details. It aims to change how people discuss things by focusing on privacy and respect, making future education and community spaces more open and positive.

Professor Lawrence Lessig leads Frankly, a free, open platform that helps diverse groups talk and make decisions together. It offers a simple way for communities to have meaningful discussions and practice civic skills without needing experts to guide them. Frankly aims to be a base for new ideas, letting people create unexpected solutions for many uses, growing its impact. This helps people join in democracy better and builds a system of tools for civic involvement. As more communities use Frankly, it hopes to make constructive talks normal, leading to better problem-solving and governance, from small meetings to big assemblies. Ultimately, Frankly wants to help shift the world so diverse views lead to solutions, not fights, and participating in democracy becomes easy and common.

Brendan Miller, an ASML Senior Software Engineer at Harvard, is excited to use the university's resources and partners to bring new ideas to social media users worldwide. He’s working on a user-focused social media system where people control their data and networks across platforms and customize their feeds. He also enjoys working on Threshold Polling with Kathy Qian, which explores shared experiences to solve group action issues. Chelsea Johnson, ASML Principal Engineer, finds it rewarding to work in an academic lab where intellectual, technical, and ethical values align. She values focusing on how technology is built, not just what is built, and prioritizing user rights and online safety, unlike profit-driven settings. Kathy Qian, another ASML Senior Software Engineer, enjoys the academic setting for its collaboration on tough problems and the creative, learning-focused atmosphere. She compares it to working in an impact-driven startup incubator.

Darius Kazemi, an ASML Senior Software Engineer, values working in an academic lab for the chance to do fundamental research, like the Fediverse Schema Observatory, which he can’t do in industry. He also appreciates using the university’s influence to navigate standards bodies and build consensus without profit motives. Alberto Leon, another ASML Senior Software Engineer, is excited to collaborate with passionate experts from various fields—faculty, fellows, industry leaders, and peers—to shape the future. He’s working on decentralized, portable identity solutions for social media that could integrate into major platforms. He’s also planning a hackathon with BKC staff to bring students and industry leaders together to solve social media challenges.

In 2024, social media faced many challenges: AI-generated content spread conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene, the U.S. tried to change TikTok’s ownership, the Surgeon General called for action on youth mental health, and Australia banned kids under 16 from social media. There were also major global elections. The Institute for Rebooting Social Media (RSM) created its Visiting Scholars program to study these online issues, develop solutions, and bring people together. The scholars focus on topics like replacing Section 230, understanding online hate speech, and improving well-being through social media. We asked the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 Visiting Scholars what they think will be the big social media topics in 2025.