Why Medium will have a more profound impact on society than Facebook or Twitter

One of the great promises of the Information Age — real-time, intelligent, respectful discourse — has yet to be realized. Facebook, with its daily parade of smiling, sanitized, carefully-posed greeting card portraits, is the last place to express anything controversial. And while the venture community has taken to conversing publicly on Twitter, the use of “tweetstorms” to convey and debate nuanced theses has all the elegance of eating soup with a kitchen knife.

Worse yet, key opinion leaders in science, medicine, law, and economics remain largely absent from the public view. Important discoveries and ideas are still subject to media distortion, even as the the press becomes increasingly splintered and slavish to popular tastes.

The true potential of the internet to raise our collective consciousness can only be unlocked if experts and thought leaders outside of the VC / tech community take the initiative to write essays and replies to one another on Medium. Under the old publishing / blogging model, conversations about GMOs, net neutrality, stem cell research, fiscal policy, and healthcare reform inevitably devolved into propaganda. For the first time, Medium has created a platform where writers can be held accountable for their claims.

Let’s help Medium tear down the barriers between purveyors of knowledge and the public. Let’s help by making content generated outside of Medium more accessible. Let’s help by facilitating the process of discovery. Let’s build a platform where members can form communities around their interests.