Frank McCourt: Founder of Project Liberty (Part II)

RadicalxChange(s)

In this episode, Project Liberty Founder Frank McCourt joins Matt for a second round to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by rapidly developing AI technologies. Building on their previous chat about digital infrastructure, they explore whether AI will exacerbate social media, digital advertising, and data centralization issues, or fundamentally change them. McCourt emphasizes fixing the internet’s design flaws to ensure AI benefits society, advocates for returning data ownership to individuals and stresses the need for political engagement to align AI with democratic values. Tune in for this enlightening conversation and what we can do moving forward.

Links & References:

References:

• RadicalxChange(s) | Frank McCourt: Founder of Project Liberty (Part I) on Reclaiming the Internet
• Khmer Empire | Wikipedia
• The Decline of the Khmer Empire | National Library of Australia
• Restrictions on TikTok in the United States | Wikipedia
• TikTok sues to block prospective US app ban | CNN Business
• How Silicon Valley gamed the world's toughest privacy rules - POLITICO
• European Union fines Meta $1.3 billion for violating privacy laws : NPR
• The Dangers of the Global Spread of China’s Digital Authoritarianism | Center for a New American Security (en-US)
• China’s Techno-Authoritarianism Has Gone Global | Human Rights Watch
• China trying to develop world ‘built on censorship and surveillance’ | Privacy News | Al Jazeera
• Project Liberty
• People’s Bid For TikTok - Project Liberty

Bios:
Frank H. McCourt, Jr. is a civic entrepreneur and the executive chairman and former CEO of McCourt Global, a private family company committed to building a better future through its work across the real estate, sports, technology, media, and capital investment industries, as well as its significant philanthropic activities. Frank is proud to extend his family’s 130-year legacy of merging community and social impact with financial results, an approach that started when the original McCourt Company was launched in Boston in 1893.

He is a passionate supporter of multiple academic, civic, and cultural institutions and initiatives. He is the founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty, a far-reaching, $500 million initiative to transform the internet through a new, equitable technology infrastructure and rebuild social media in a way that enables users to own and control their personal data. The project includes the development of a groundbreaking, open-source internet protocol called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), which will be owned by the public to serve as a new web infrastructure. It also includes the creation of Project Liberty’s Institute (formerly The McCourt Institute,) launched with founding partners Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, and Sciences Po in Paris, to advance research, bring together technologists and social scientists, and develop a governance model for the internet’s next era.

Frank has served on Georgetown University’s Board of Directors for many years and, in 2013, made a $100 million founding investment to create Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He expanded on this in 2021 with a $100 million investment to catalyze an inclusive pipeline of public policy leaders and put the school on a path to becoming tuition-free.

In 2024, Frank released his first book, OUR BIGGEST FIGHT: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age.

Frank’s Social Links:

• Project Liberty
• Project Liberty (@pro_jectliberty) / X
• Project Liberty (@pro_jectliberty) • Instagram
• McCourt Institute (@McCourtInst) / X

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is the President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.
Matt’s Social Links:

• ᴍᴀᴛᴛ ᴘʀᴇᴡɪᴛᴛ (@m_t_prewitt) / X

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

• RadicalxChange Website
• @RadxChange | Twitter
• RxC | YouTube
• RxC | Instagram
• RxC | LinkedIn
• Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

• Produced by G. Angela Corpus.
• Co-Produced, Edited, Narrated, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides.
• Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt.
• Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)