Empowering India’s Marginalized, Building A Humane Society – Essay

Celebrating life and times of Dr Mohd Manzoor Alam


In September 2016 at Bodhgaya, Dr Mohd Manzoor Alam with H.E the Governor of Bihar Mr R N Kovind at the national seminar on ‘Importance of Inter-Religious Understanding: Its implications for Mankind’. Mr Kovind was President of India from 2017-2022. 

Photo-credit: IOS, New Delhi

October 13, 2025 
By Raju Mansukhani

Rarely is there a multifaceted personality in public life who is as deeply entrenched in politics, religion, academia, foreign affairs and economic issues and yet has the strength and courage of conviction neither to seek public office nor favours from the ruling elites in his own country or from overseas. Dr Mohd Manzoor Alam, who turned 80 in October 2025, is a shining example of such a towering intellectual-activist whose Institute of Objective Studies (IOS) was established in New Delhi in 1986 and has, since then, steadfastly worked to empower India’s marginalized. In his own words, he was vision-inspired to work towards building a humane society.

Having earned his doctorate in economics from Aligarh Muslim University back in 1977, Dr Alam spent a decade working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, understanding issues of macro and micro-economics at the global and national levels, working with highly experienced men who became his mentors in the long journey he began when he decided to be back where his heart was: in India, in the dusty and hot heartlands where at least two generations of Indians were being marginalized, deprived of their Constitutional rights in free and independent India.

On 8 October 2025, three generations of Indians and foreign nationals gathered at the Constitution Club in New Delhi to felicitate the life and times of Dr Alam with the release of a well-researched biography aptly titled ‘Empowering the Marginalized’, written by A.U. Asif, a senior mediaperson who spent years on the book project ensuring Dr Alam shared details of his life, family, work and the vast global network of colleagues, associates and friends, all of whom gave IOS and Dr Alam the strength to face innumerable academic-intellectual-and spiritual challenges. Salman Khushid, former Union Minister of India and a senior parliamentarian, did the honours of releasing the book. Other dignitaries, Indian and foreign, spoke of the global recognition of Dr Alam’s work and the roll-out of IOS programs; the Institute was on Rooster Status with United Nations ECOSOC (as the Economic and Social Council is known as) and an active member of the Delhi Minorities Commission for decades.
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Empowering the Marginalized’: Books on display at Constitution Club, New Delhi on 8 October 2025. Photo-credit: IOS, New Delhi

Intellectuals and activists

Speaking during the 25th Year Silver Jubilee Celebrations of IOS in 2011, Dr Alam said, “we hope you will appreciate our endeavour to involve and bring together a wide spectrum of academicians, intellectuals, ulema, legislators, mediapersons, opinion-makers and civil society activists from India and all over the world. They have been regularly participating in the international conferences, seminars, workshops, lecture-series and book release functions we have organized since 1987. Our efforts to build meaningful bridges between the intellectuals and leaders, on the one hand, and the grassroot-level activists, on the other, have continued to gain momentum. We have been vision-inspired to create and build a humane society: the thoughts, ideas, concepts, publications and road-maps that have emerged through the IOS programs have encouraged us to keep on forging ahead.”

Said AU Asif, during the October 2025 celebrations, “this biography delves into the life of an individual (we respectfully call him ‘Doctor Saheb’) with deep connections to the two iconic rivers of India, the Bagmati and Yamuna. Born on the banks of the Bagmati, Doctor Saheb was raised amidst the rich cultural heritage that flourishes along the river. His formative years, up to the completion of his matriculation, were spent in this vibrant environment. In 1964, he achieved the distinction of being the first matriculate from his village, Ranipur, Madhubani District, Bihar (the area comes under Mithila / Mithilanchal region), marking the beginning of his educational journey.” Quite obviously, the young Mohd Manzoor Alam soon became the first graduate, post-graduate and then the first Ph.D of the ancient land to which he belongs!

Asif pointed out that Dr Alam’s personal achievements as a young educated Indian went hand in hand with his significant contribution in leveraging formal education to combat illiteracy in Madhubani and in the region of Mithila. “That’s why the upcoming Census of India is expected to reveal significant positive changes compared to that of the previous years, such as 1961, 1981, 1971, 1991, 2001, and 2011, reflecting the ongoing efforts to eradicate illiteracy in this region,” he noted.


In Saudi Arabia

Some of the most formative years of Dr Mohd Manzoor Alam were spent in Saudi Arabia. The young economist from Aligarh Muslim University was now working in prestigious departments of the ministry of finance and affiliated departments. Nine long years into his employment in the Kingdom, his concerns towards the homeland did not flag. The biography notes that he remained determined, striving to pave the way for justice, inclusivity, and equality. “He came into contact with some of the important figures of that era which included Dr Ahmad Totonji, Dr AbdulHamid Ahmad AbuSulayman, Dr Taha Jabir Alalwani, Dr Hisham Altalib, Dr Jamal M Albarzinji, Dr Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi, Dr Fazlur Rahman, Dr Hassan Al-Turabi, Dr Anwar Ibrahim, Prof Omar Hasan Kasule, Dr Abdul Rahman Bin Aqeel, Dr Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Madani, Dr Ibrahim H Al-Quayid, Dr Abdullah Turkistani, Dr Sheikh Talal M Badkuk, Dr Abdullah Matouk Al-Maatouk, Prof Samir Qasim Fakhro, Datok Seri M Iqbal Rawther, Dr Mohd Ghazali Bin Md Noor, A J M Zaneer, Mohammad Siddiq, among others.”

Dr Anwar Ibrahim, now the Prime Minister of Malayasia, sent his special message for the book release function and expressed his views in the biography: “Dr M Manzoor Alam is a man of exceptional intellect, honesty and unwavering integrity. I’ve known him for over four decades. Certainly back then, our hair and beards were full black. Our paths first crossed at an International Islamic Federation of Student Organisation (IIFSO) conference in the 1970s, where I was immediately struck by his kindness and his deep commitment to the cause of dawah.”

“I have personally participated in numerous programs with Brother Manzoor in Delhi, Kozhikode (Calicut) and other places. He has a profound impact in bringing together great experts and thinkers to engage in academic work and research on various issues, particularly those related to the Muslims. He often cites notable reports like the Sachar Committee Report, which addressed the issues of Muslim educational and economic marginalisation and recommended immediate action for their resolution. He has also consistently been a voice for the Dalit community, the impoverished untouchables of India, believing that efforts to alleviate extreme poverty are essential and crucial for restoring the dignity of the entire Indian community, both individually and collectively,” he said.
Focus on the youth

From New York, a senior Islamic scholar-ideologue Dr Ahmad Totonji had recalled his memories of meeting and working with Dr Alam, “In Saudi Arabia, Dr Alam seized the opportunity to engage with students from 60 countries at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMISIU). During this time, he also collaborated with Dr Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Madani, chairman of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group to present a comprehensive report on the state of the Muslims in India. Their findings recommended a ten-day visit to assess conditions first hand. Dr Alam compiled a detailed report, which the IsDB utilised to allocate US $10 million for the enhancement of the Muslim educational institutions and further improvements in conditions. Additionally, it was also decided to commit an additional US $10 million over subsequent years, a commitment that continues to this day.”

Dr Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Madani, Founder President Emeritus, IsDB Group in Jeddah words echo these achievements of Dr Alam, “I always appreciate Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam’s role in launching the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) scholarship program in India. I also acknowledge the immense support he provided when I, as the President of the IsDB Group, visited India for the first time to explore ways to support the Muslim community. During that visit, I had the opportunity to visit various educational institutions in India with Dr Alam and meet with leaders working on the Muslim community education. It’s true that thanks to Dr Alam’s collaboration, the Islamic Development Bank was able to establish its most successful scholarship programme for students in the Indian Muslim community.”



From Bahrain, Dr Samir Qasim Fakhro director of Arab Open University and Technology Educator is another old colleague and dear friend who said, “I first met Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam in Delhi on November 13-14, 2006, at a two-day international conference on Indo-Arab Relations: Partnership in Development organised jointly by the Indo-Arab Economic Cooperation Forum and the IOS. Although this conference was a private initiative at a non-governmental level, the participation of some key officials, representatives, and experts from both regions and the serious consideration of Indo-Arab relations and cooperation at the public level essentially explained the importance of Dr Alam’s ‘bridge-like’ role. It is worth noting that he is the head of both the aforementioned institutions. He also has a deep understanding and expertise regarding both regions. He has also travelled to most of the countries in West Asia. It was only then that, on the occasion of this non-governmental conference, interaction between the then Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, five central ministers, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, and other experts, although not at the same level, was possible with high-level Arab representatives and renowned Asian policy expert and 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Anwar Ibrahim. At that time, I felt the weight of Dr Alam’s determination that “we need to expand and enhance these opportunities in India and the Arab world, which, as a result of globalisation, are ensuring that inclusive and multi-dimensional growth is possible in our regions.”

Dr Mohd Manzoor Alam at the book release function on 8 October 2025, surrounded by friends and well-wishers. Photo-credit: IOS New Delhi

Presence across India

Dr Mohd Manzoor Alam was clear, crystal clear about the IOS mission which he always said was “to create synergy in the realm of ideas to foster peace, justice and universal brotherhood.” The IOS objectives were spelt out: developing paradigms and strategies in Islamic perspective; Creating specialized institutions and platforms for intellectuals, ulema and other religious scholars to establish a just and peaceful world culture; Promoting appropriate methodologies of enquiry and communication; Streamlining mechanism for the empowerment of Muslims and other marginalized communities; Disseminating information to the Ummah about challenges and opportunities in a changing global order.

As IOS reaches its landmark 40th year in 2026-2027 of establishing its pan-Indian presence, it can look back at organising over 1500 national and international conferences, seminars and workshops. There have been 500 or more publications, three journals and newsletters which underscore the importance of research in every domain of social sciences, with a focus on Islamic studies. Be it in English, Hindi, Urdu, Persian or Arabic, the IOS list of publications continues to grow and address the needs of its diverse audiences.

In one of the chapters of the biography Dr Alam speaks most powerfully and with utmost respect for “the privilege of being acquainted with two eminent figures of our time, each a luminary in their respective fields. One, a renowned authority in Islamic law, rendered numerous profound judgments as the esteemed Qazi, Imarat-e-Shariah, Phulwarisharif, Bihar. The other, a distinguished expert in modern law, delivered several landmark verdicts during his long career as a judge and finally as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. The legal pronouncements made by these esteemed individuals are not only historically significant but also serve as benchmarks and sources of inspiration in their respective domains.” Dr Alam was referring to Qazi Mujahidul Islam Qasmi and Justice AM Ahmadi, both of whom gave IOS the benefit of their encyclopaedic learning and wisdom.

He explained, “one individual enriched the legal realm with the invaluable tome ‘Islamic Justice’, while the other’s seminal work titled ‘Flow of Thoughts’ stands as a beacon for judges worldwide. Qazi Saheb, through his illustrious career, played a pivotal role in establishing the Qaziul Quzzzat at Imarat-e-Shariah, Phulwarisharif, as well as the Islamic Fiqh Academy of India. His leadership as the President of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, and Chief Justice of the Central Shariat Court, left an indelible mark. The Islamic Fiqh Academy (India) fosters an environment conducive to ijtihad, promoting thoughtful discourse and exploration of contemporary issues in alignment with the teachings of the Quran and Hadith. The other led the country’s judiciary as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, and after retirement, participated in activities to enhance respect and dignity for the country’s Constitution among the general public. The companionship of both the experts in Islamic law and modern law not only provided me with camaraderie but also kept me aligned with my mission, and I had the privilege of supervising the IOS under their guidance.”

In 1996, in a documentary film commemorating the 10th Year Anniversary of Institute of Objective Studies, Dr Mohd Manzoor Alam spoke with poise and conviction in words that can be inscribed on stone: “A task without a vision is a drudgery; a vision without a task is but a dream; but a vision with a task is the hope of the world.”

Raju Mansukhani

Raju Mansukhani, based in New Delhi, is a researcher-writer on history and heritage issues; a media consultant with leading museums, non-profits, universities and corporates in India and overseas. Contributing regular columns, book reviews and features in the media he has drawn attention of the new generations to critical issues and personalities of Indian and Asian history. Over the last three decades he has authored books on diverse subjects including the media, palace architecture, sports and contemporary history. Through in-depth documentaries, he has profiled leading Asian public figures highlighting their research and publications.

Are Income Trusts A Ponzi Scheme

One has to worry about Income Trusts in Canada. The reason is that this country has such poor regulations around capital and investments, that it is literally the wild west for all sorts of get rich quick schemes. Bre-X was not an anomaly but business as usual.

Globeinvestor.com: Building Bay St.

The Toronto Stock Exchange was established in 1861, with 24 members (who paid $5 each to belong), trading 18 securities during half-hour daily sessions held at a local Masonic hall. But much of the action shifted to the cross-town Standard Stock and Mining Exchange, which was formed in 1901 and became the North American capital for mining shares and stock swindles. The Financial Post estimated that 400,000 investors were bilked out of $100 million, before the S&M was merged into the slightly more respectable TSE in 1934.

One of Bay Street's first major reforms was a crackdown on wash trading (a practice that created the appearance of activity through the manipulation of fictitious accounts) following the 1964 Windfall Scandal. Viola MacMillan, a doughty prospector, used the technique for fraudulent promotion of Consolidated Golden Arrow Mines. But it was Windfall Mines, another MacMillan company, that triggered the uproar after she drove up the price of its shares from 65 cents to $5.60 without any underlying value in the summer of 1964. She was later sentenced to nine months in jail in connection with Golden Arrow, but served just eight weeks. Windfall wasn't that much of a scandal because so many mine promoters followed her example, but the royal commission formed to investigate the case nevertheless recommended trading reforms. MacMillan died in 1993 at 90, fully pardoned and the holder of an Order of Canada. (Lenny Gaudet, please copy.)

Corporate crime in Canada is big business,it is actually business as usual, and it has had historic international or at least cross border connections with the United States.

Al Capone operated out of Moosejaw, the Bronfmans supplied Capone with booze and then operated on their own. Capone was indicted for income tax evasion, the Bronfmans are corporate big wigs in the international Entertainment business.

Corprate crime in Canada is still all wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And while corporate crime is big in Canada, in fact it is a major export, such as the boiler room swindle of British MP and author Jeffery Archer. The Canadain legal system is like Siberia when it comes to dealing with it, out in the cold and in the dark.

Welcome to the world of white-collar crime. It's always been there, but perhaps you didn't notice. A lot of criminologists like to refer to 1940 as the year when criminology first noticed, when Edwin Sutherland drew attention to it, and defined it as "crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation." Sutherland's (1949) pioneering study of legal action against the seventy largest U.S. corporations found that all seventy firms in the sample had at least one formal action against them, and that the average number of violations per company was fourteen. A full 60% of the firms had been convicted in criminal court. Goff & Reasons (1978) found similar white collar crime patterns in Canada, and Clinard & Yeager (1980) found that nearly two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies come under fire at least once a year for federal regulatory violations and/or violations of corporate/criminal law.

WHITE-COLLAR AND CORPORATE CRIME OVERLOOKED

While over one-million charges were laid against street criminals in 1988, only 23 were laid against corporations in the first two years of the 1986 Competition Act. According to Holmes, the lenient treatment of non-violent crime has led to the growth of a "get-something-for-nothing attitude." Similarly, many corporations view the penalties for corporate crime as a Òmere cost of doing business."

Judges require better corporate crime education: Judicial training has historically keyed on blue-collar wrongdoing

Securities regulators should place greater emphasis on restitution for aggrieved investors and Canada should create specialized criminal courts specifically for white-collar crimes, according to a York-authored study cited in the National Post June 15. 2005

Not surprisingly, said the Post, her paper also reiterated the widely held view that when compared with their US counterparts, Canadian regulators do not engage in enough enforcement activity and are less effective when they do. To support her assertion, Puri cited statistics that showed Canadian securities regulators devote a smaller percentage of their total budget to enforcement than their US counterparts. As well, Puri found financial penalties are 10 times higher in the United States than the average Canadian fine.

Corporate and white-collar crime is not victimless. The harms caused by corporate misconduct can result in substantial injury to a broad range of stakeholders, as witnessed by recent accounting and corporate governance scandals at Enron and Worldcom. Shareholders can lose their retirement savings, employees their jobs, and creditors significant investments. Ernst & Young fraud investigator Don Holmes estimates that white-collar crime costs Canadians $20-billion a year. The Canadian judiciary needs to recognize not only the magnitude and impact of corporate misconduct on large segments of the population, but also the broader ramifications of corporate crime on the Canadian economy.

The judiciary has historically treated white-collar criminal offenders more leniently in sentencing than blue-collar offenders. Compare robbery and burglary to accounting fraud and embezzlement. Compare tax evasion under the Income Tax Act to fraud under the Unemployment Insurance Act. Compare traditional theft to misleading advertising. Existing studies reveal that white-collar offenders are less likely to be imprisoned and that they receive lower average sentences and serve less time.

I am currently reading a great book on the 1960's mutual fund rip off done by Bernard Cornfeld, the book is called Do You Sincerely Want To Be Rich. Cornfeld and his company IOS were operated out of Europe and registered on the American Stock exchange via Ontario. They were underwritten by the Royal Bank of Canada. They sold mutual funds, and created a super fund of mutual funds which was really composed of lots of mini mutual funds that IOS created. When the market crashed in 1970 their swindle was revealed. Bernie retired to Hollywood to live with Hedi Fleiss, the Hollywood Madame.

Beautifully engraved Certificate from the Investors Overseas Services issued in 1969. This historic document was printed by the Canadian Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of of a semi nude female sitting in front of an major industrial facility above the company's nototious logo. This item has the printed signatures of the company's officers including Bernard Cornfeld as President and is over 34 years old. There are 32 unused coupons attached to the bottom of this certificate not shown in the scan.

Robert Vesco

Another notrious crook took over IOS, Robert Vesco. Vesco ran a variety of financial black market operations including involvement with the U.S. Military and the spook (spy) community. He like Bernie also operated out of Canada for a while.




Sep. 19, 1983 The New Jersey financier fled the U.S. in 1972 after being indicted on charges that he looted $224 million from the Geneva-based Investors Overseas Services Ltd., and illegally donated $200,000 to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. Since then Vesco has lolled in exile in the Caribbean, apparently in the Bahamas, safe from extradition efforts.

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A Valhalla of the Vile/Here are the Felon Index rankings:

	Scammer	$mm (adjusted for inflation)	years served in prison	Felon Index Score
1.	Bernie Cornfeld (1970)	$2,305	0.92	2,514.5
2.	Michael Milken (1986)	$1,630	3	543.3
3.	Tino De Angelis (1963)	$1,170	7	167.1
4.	Stanley Goldblum (1973)	$1,209	8	151.1
5.	Ivan Boesky (1986)	$163	1.83	89.1
6.	Barry Minkow (1989)	$151	5	30.2
7.	Charles Ponzi (1920)	$ 17.9	5	3.6

The accounting firm Arthur Anderson, who also advised Mike Harris and his Ontario government about privatization schemes for work for welfare, was caught in the Enron scandal. But Wall Street knew about Andersons peccadillo for shady accounting. They had been Bernie Cornfelds IOS accounts back in the 1960's!

Enron and World Com were well connected with Bay Street and Canada's banking industry, CIBC the Royal Bank both had to bay out billions last year in fines for their involvement in the great dot.com swindle. And remember the Royal Bank underwrote Cornfelds IOS Fund of Funds back in the sixties.

Today CIBC is passing off its costs of fines for being a criminal onto its bond holders.
Bondholders warned to beware getting the short end of the stick

Then there are our own rip off artists, Nelson Skalbania and Peter Pocklington who profited during the wild boom and bust of the 1980's, taking advantage of the unregulated Alberta and B.C. stock market. They swindled investors, screwed workers, ripped off governments, and in the case of Pocklington never went to jail. Skalbania spent some time in jail, certainly less than an average street criminal. And once out was allowed to continue trading on the stock market in Canada.

Alberta is home to the Income Trust business in Canada. It originated in the petro-towers of Calgary. The first Canadian income trust was a petro trust. Modeled on the American Trusts, they have managed to become a tax haven because of loose or non existant tax rules.

Marcel Tremblay, inventor of Canadian income-trust structure, dies at 64

A bold business leader with more than 40 years of experience in Canada's investment-management and energy industries, Tremblay is best known as the inventor of the income-trust structure in Canada.

Tremblay designed and created Canada's first income trust, Enerplus Resources Fund, in 1986, spearheading a sector of the Canadian economy that now represents over 15 per cent of the market capitalization of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"Convincing the brokerage community that this idea made sense was an almost impossible task," Tremblay told The Canadian Press in 2004.

"My objective was always to give investors the best return possible, minimize the taxation issues, preserve capital as much as possible and make sure they participate in the upside."

The effect that income trusts have had on the Canadian business landscape is dramatic, to say the least.

Income trusts are now the fastest-growing sector of Canadian capital markets because of their sizable distributions of income to unitholders and their considerable tax advantages over a standard corporate structure.

It is finally after all the political debate this past year a business that is now under the scrutiny of Standard and Poors in the U.S.

Obscure income trust reports can mislead investors: S&P

The two analysts said income trust reports are so obscure, and so full of distortions, they can easily lead investors astray. To make it worse, key information is often missing.

"Coupled with insufficient and inconsistent disclosure by management, the information risks inherent in this area of the Canadian capital markets continue to be quite significant," S&P said.

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This is far more important an investigation than who leaked the Income Trust announcement. Though the profiteering off that announcement is an iconic metaphor for the shady nature of Income Trusts. Just as their name says it all, hiding income from the tax man

Also see:
Income Trusts
Corporate Welfare Bums
Criminal Capitalism
Crime



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Stewardship of global collective behavior

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PNAS July 6, 2021 118 (27) e2025764118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2025764118

Edited by Bonnie J. McCay, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, and approved May 17, 2021 (received for review December 14, 2020)


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Abstract

Collective behavior provides a framework for understanding how the actions and properties of groups emerge from the way individuals generate and share information. In humans, information flows were initially shaped by natural selection yet are increasingly structured by emerging communication technologies. Our larger, more complex social networks now transfer high-fidelity information over vast distances at low cost. The digital age and the rise of social media have accelerated changes to our social systems, with poorly understood functional consequences. This gap in our knowledge represents a principal challenge to scientific progress, democracy, and actions to address global crises. We argue that the study of collective behavior must rise to a “crisis discipline” just as medicine, conservation, and climate science have, with a focus on providing actionable insight to policymakers and regulators for the stewardship of social systems.

collective behavior
computational social science
social media
complex systems

Collective behavior historically referred to instances in which groups of humans or animals exhibited coordinated action in the absence of an obvious leader (1⇓⇓–4): from billions of locusts, extending over hundreds of kilometers, devouring vegetation as they move onward; to schools of fish convulsing like some animate fluid while under attack from predators; to our own societies, characterized by cities, with buildings and streets full of color and sound, alive with activity. The characteristic feature of all of these systems is that social interactions among the individual organisms give rise to patterns and structure at higher levels of organization, from the formation of vast mobile groups to the emergence of societies with division of labor, social norms, opinions, and price dynamics.

Over the past few decades “collective behavior” has matured from a description of phenomena to a framework for understanding the mechanisms by which collective action emerges (3⇓⇓⇓–7). It reveals how large-scale “higher-order” properties of the collectives feed back to influence individual behavior, which in turn can influence the behavior of the collective, and so on. Collective behavior therefore focuses on the study of individuals in the context of how they influence and are influenced by others, taking into account the causes and consequences of interindividual differences in physiology, motivation, experience, goals, and other properties.

The multiscale interactions and feedback that underlie collective behavior are hallmarks of “complex systems”—which include our brains, power grids, financial markets, and the natural world (8, 9). When perturbed, complex systems tend to exhibit finite resilience followed by catastrophic, sudden, and often irreversible changes in functionality (9, 10). Across a wide range of complex systems, research has highlighted how anthropogenic disturbance—technology, resource extraction, and population growth—is an increasing, if not dominant, source of systemic risk. Yet, scientific research on how complex systems are impacted by human technology and population growth has largely focused on the threats that these pose to the natural world (11⇓–13). We have a far poorer understanding of the functional consequences of recent large-scale changes to human collective behavior and decision making. Our social adaptations evolved in the context of small hunter-gatherer groups solving local problems through vocalizations and gestures. Now we face complex global challenges from pandemics to climate change—and we communicate on dispersed networks connected by digital technologies such as smartphones and social media.

With increasingly strong links between ecological and sociological processes, averting catastrophe in the medium term (e.g., coronavirus) and the long term (e.g., climate change, food security) will require rapid and effective collective behavioral responses—yet it remains unknown whether human social dynamics will yield such responses (14⇓⇓–17). In addition to existential ecological and climatic threats, human social dynamics present other challenges to individual and collective wellbeing, such as vaccine refusal, election tampering, disease, violent extremism, famine, racism, and war.

Neither the evolutionary nor the technological changes to our social systems have come about with the express purpose of promoting global sustainability or quality of life. Recent and emerging technologies such as online social media are no exception—both the structure of our social networks and the patterns of information flow through them are directed by engineering decisions made to maximize profitability. These changes are drastic, opaque, effectively unregulated, and massive in scale.

The emergent functional consequences are unknown. We lack the scientific framework we would need to answer even the most basic questions that technology companies and their regulators face. For instance, will a given algorithm for recommending friends—or one for selecting news items to display—promote or hinder the spread of misinformation online? We do not have access to a theory-driven, empirically verified body of literature to inform a response to such a question. Lacking a developed framework, tech companies have fumbled their way through the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, unable to stem the “infodemic” of misinformation that impedes public acceptance of control measures such as masks and widespread testing (18).

In response, regulators and the public have doubled down on calls for reforming our social media ecosystem, with demands ranging from increased transparency and user controls to legal liability and public ownership. The basic debate is an ancient one: Are large-scale behavioral processes self-sustaining and self-correcting, or do they require active management and guidance to promote sustainable and equitable wellbeing (2, 19)? Historically, these questions have been addressed in philosophical or normative terms. Here, we build on our understanding of disturbed complex systems to argue that human social dynamics cannot be expected to yield solutions to global issues or to promote human wellbeing without evidence-based policy and ethical stewardship.

The situation parallels challenges faced in conservation biology and climate science, where insufficiently regulated industries optimize profits while undermining the stability of ecological and earth systems. Such behavior created a need for urgent evidence-based policy in the absence of a complete understanding of the systems’ underlying dynamics (e.g., ecology and geosciences). These features led Michael Soulé to describe conservation biology as the “crisis discipline” counterpoint to ecology—an analogy to the relationship between medicine and comparative physiology (20). Crisis disciplines are distinct from other areas of urgent, evidenced-based research in their need to consider the degradation of an entire complex system—without a complete description of the system’s dynamics. We feel that the study of human collective behavior must become the crisis discipline response to changes in our social dynamics.

Because human collective behavior is the result of processes that span temporal, geographical, and organizational scales, addressing the impact of emerging technology on global behavior will require a transdisciplinary approach and unprecedented collaboration between scientists across a wide range of academic disciplines. As our societies are increasingly instantiated in digital form, once-mathematical abstractions of social processes—networks are one prominent example—become very real parts of daily life (21⇓–23). These changes present new challenges, as well as opportunities for measurement and intervention. Disciplines within and beyond the social sciences have access to techniques and ways of thinking that expand our ability to understand and respond to the effects of communication technology. We believe such a collaboration is urgently needed.

In what follows, we begin by framing human collective behavior as a complex adaptive system shaped by evolution, a system that much like our natural world has entered a heavily altered and likely unsustainable state (14, 24, 25). We highlight how communication technology has restructured human social networks, expanding, reorganizing, and coupling them to technological systems. Drawing on insight from complexity science and related fields, we discuss observed and potential consequences. Next, we describe how a transdisciplinary approach is required for actionable insight into the stewardship of social systems. Finally, we discuss some of the key ethical, scientific, and political challenges.

Communication Technology and Global Collective Behavior

Scholars have long sought to understand the mechanisms by which groups of individuals accomplish collective action (1, 2, 26). This phenomenon has been studied in a variety of disciplines, from anthropology, social psychology, sociology, political science, management, communication studies, economics, animal behavior, and sociobiology, to computer science, statistical physics, and the emerging domain of computational social science (27⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–35). These disciplines are largely differentiated by methods, scale of organization, and whether they study aspects of contemporary Homo sapiens society.

On an evolutionarily miniscule timescale, cultural and technological processes transformed our species’ ecology (36). These changes that have transpired over this period have come about largely to solve issues at the scale of families, cities, and nations; only recently have cultural products begun to focus on solutions to worldwide problems and wellbeing. Our ability to detect and measure global challenges has coincided with an acceleration in the rate at which we are able to develop and adopt cheaply scalable communication technology.

Yet we lack the ability to predict how the technologies we adopt today will impact global patterns of beliefs and behavior tomorrow. Reliable prediction of social systems is among the more elusive challenges in science (37). For instance, elections in countries such as the United States involve a discrete decision between two options and offer ample polling data—yet their outcomes remain difficult to predict (38). The key hurdle to predicting and managing emergent behavior is that social interactions and external feedback make it difficult, if not impossible, to reason about cross-scale dynamics through argument alone (i.e., these are complex adaptive systems) (25).

Scientists have confronted this type of problem before. The counterintuitive properties of emergent behavior frustrated early 20th century ethologists who reluctantly concluded that animal collectives such as flocking birds must employ telepathy to synchronize their harmonious short-term behaviors (1). To progress beyond these fanciful theories, researchers found ways to directly measure the collective dynamics of animal groups and developed approaches grounded in well-established sensory physiology and evolutionary theory (26, 39, 40). This body of literature has cataloged myriad ways in which collective functionality arises from natural selection shaping the behavioral rules that govern the actions and interactions of group members (41, 42). This research has highlighted that the remarkable capabilities of animal groups are not granted by supernatural forces but rather arise through the adaptation of collective behavior to ecological context (43, 44).

Collective animal behavior is one of many naturally occurring complex adaptive systems. Across the natural sciences, understanding and responding to the impact of human activity on complex systems are at the forefront of scientific inquiry. For example, in the last few decades it has become clear that population growth, technology, and overexploitation have had detrimental consequences on sustainability and ecosystem productivity (11, 13, 14). Earth scientists have responded by bridging disciplines and developing an applied approach aimed at providing regulators with information required for effective ecosystem stewardship. Brain science and medicine face similar challenges regarding how our psychological health and physical health are impacted by novel environmental conditions and substances. Evolutionary biology links conservation, medicine, epidemiology, and agriculture as they cope with impacts of rapidly changing selection landscapes (45).

By contrast, the long-term consequences of disturbance to human social dynamics remain unclear. For example, in the context of climate change there are strong arguments across disciplines suggesting that rapid behavioral change can bring about sustainability (16, 46, 47). At the same time, we cannot say whether a given communication technology will promote or prevent necessary changes from occurring. More generally, we lack the ability to foresee the externalities that communication technologies impose on aspects of human and ecosystem health and wellbeing. Below, we highlight four key ways in which recent changes to our social systems may have dramatically and unsustainably impacted social dynamics. Drawing on insights from a variety of academic disciplines, we describe how these changes are all but certain to have functional consequences at scale. Taken together, we argue that the changing functional properties of our global social network are unlikely to foster human wellbeing or ecological function and stability in the absence of evidence-based intervention.

Increased Scale of Human Social Networks.

Perhaps the most obvious way in which human social networks differ from our ancestors and animal groups is in sheer scale. Our global social network of 7.8 billion people (3.6 billion of whom use social media) is distinct among macroscopic species. Among explanations for our large population size and geographic range is the agricultural revolution, in which humans domesticated crops and animals, paving the way for urbanization (but see refs. 48⇓–50).

Connections between these groups formed states, nations, and the global social and economic network that now encompasses all but a few isolated groups (36, 51). Even language barriers are dissolving with global internet connectivity and effective machine translation. Cultural products, news, and information can spread far beyond their circumstance of origin. These remarkable changes to our social network size and structure and our institutions emerged over an extremely short time window of 12,000 y and well after the arrival of modern humans (48, 52).

The speed of recent changes to our society has largely precluded evolution by natural selection from altering our innate behavior and physiology in response. Hard-wired aspects of our individual and collective behavior are largely relics of earlier ecological and sociological contexts. Cultural evolution happens on a much faster timescale and has radically shaped collective human behavior (36, 51). This process has only accelerated, and our collective behavior now occurs in an environment that is defined by recent innovations in communication technology (e.g., social media, email, television) (53). While ideas for institutions and technology may be traced to individuals, their diffusion and shaping both arise from and alter collective, and historical, processes.

Expanding the scale of a collectively behaving system by eight orders of magnitude is certain to have functional consequences. Not only are societies at the scale of ours rare in the natural world; they also are often ecologically unstable where they do form (54). There are many possible challenges such large groups can face. Scarce resources, perhaps resulting from degraded commons or overpopulation, can cause intergroup or interindividual competition and war (55⇓–57). Although there is evidence that shared commons can be sustainable, it is challenging to make them so—particularly at global scales (47).

Even if sufficient resources are available, changes in group size will have a host of functional consequences. Research in statistical physics and opinion dynamics demonstrates that group size can impact the tendency of collectives to settle on decisions (58, 59). Work from the collective intelligence literature suggests intermediate optimal group sizes in complex environments and highlights the difficulty of wise decision making in large groups (60, 61). Evolutionary mechanisms that encourage cooperation or coordination may be scale dependent, requiring institutions such as religion and governance to maintain these properties as group size increases (36, 62⇓–64). Heterogeneous adoption of these institutions may further create conflict and erode cooperation (29, 65). In short, changes in scale alone have the potential to alter a group’s ability to make accurate decisions, reach a clear majority, and cooperate.

Changes in Network Structure.

The behavioral properties of a group arise not only from the number and properties of the individuals involved (i.e., the nodes of a social network) but also from the structure and temporal dynamics of the interactions between them (i.e., the edges). In other words, the same individuals arranged in a different network can exhibit different emergent behavior (66⇓–68). Although offline networks from hunter-gatherers to urban dwellers bear structural similarities (69), the connectivity of technological social networks is starkly different (70).

Communication technologies allow people to interact more frequently and to do so with others from geographically distant areas. Ties that span otherwise large network distances (i.e., long ties) can have profound consequences on the spread of disease and flow of information, including misinformation. For simple contagions, where a single interaction can lead to transmission (e.g., of disease), long ties can increase spreading (71, 72). Changes to simple contagions resulting from long ties online are among the easiest to model and reason about. As an example, online dating apps add long ties on sexual contact social networks—often by design, as they seek to connect strangers. This has the potential to increase disease burden even for those that do not use the services.

The spread of information and subsequent behavioral change often involves processes that go beyond simple contagion (73). While information may spread in a manner akin to disease, models must also account for how individuals integrate and adjust behavior, form opinions, and experience changes in emotion based on information from multiple sources (74, 75). Across disciplines, a host of interrelated models of information and behavior transmission have been developed, including complex contagion (computational social science), conformity (psychology, evolutionary anthropology), majority rule (political science, statistical physics), uses and gratifications (communication), and frequency-dependent learning (animal behavior) (28, 76⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–82). Virtually all of these models exhibit strong dependence on network structure. In many formulations, changes in network density, clustering, or the presence of influential individuals determine transmission dynamics. Such changes are unavoidable when groups adopt certain new communication technologies.

For most of our evolutionary past, individual H. sapiens may have maintained meaningful social contacts with, at most, hundreds of others and often far fewer (62, 69). Today, it is easy to connect and share information with thousands of other individuals on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. More traditional forms of media such as TV, newspapers, and books allow individual authors and content creators to reach more people than were alive only a few thousand years ago. Highly connected individuals possess outsized influence, and it is unlikely that their centrality is solely related to being a producer of higher-quality information (83⇓⇓–86). Instead, their popularity may be a result of cumulative advantage or the tendency to evoke an emotional response (70, 87). Vested interests have taken advantage of new communication technology to spread misinformation, which partially explains why climate contrarians are overrepresented in nontraditional, digital media (88). In contexts where decisions depend upon accurate information about the world, these processes could undermine collective intelligence or promote dangerous behavior such as vaccine refusal (89, 90).

At a higher level of organization, our large population size combined with communication technology permits the development of novel network structures that were not possible historically. Macroscopic features of these structures, such as strong interconnectedness, long ties, and inequality of influence, drive many positive developments, such as transnational and transdisciplinary collaborations, rapid spread of scientific ideas, direct citizen engagement in science and politics, and overcoming isolation of individuals that do not fit in their local communities because of their beliefs and preferences (3, 30).

These structural features can also contribute to harmful phenomena: echo chambers and polarization, eroded trust in government, worldwide spread of local economic instabilities, global consequences of local electorate decisions, difficulty coordinating responses to pandemics, migrations driven by unreliable information about potential host countries, and others (70, 91, 92). Novel large-scale structures can further impact the flow of information, altering the speed and accuracy with which information spreads (30, 93⇓⇓–96). Recent work suggests that network structural effects can lead to “information gerrymandering” that induces undemocratic outcomes whereby a majority of the electorate votes against the electorate’s interest (97). These examples represent just a few of the many ways in which structure can impact collective functionality.

Information Fidelity and Correlation.

While the structure and size of the global social network have changed, so too has the information that travels along its edges. Early human communication was largely biological (e.g., vocalizations, gestures, speech), relatively slow, and inherently noisy, allowing information to mutate and degrade as it moved throughout a network. Experimental and observational evidence suggests this natural decay allows influence from a given node to travel about three to four degrees of separation from the initiator (98, 99).

While noise, latency, and information decay are often viewed as unwanted in other areas of study, in collective systems they can serve several important functions. Noise can disrupt gridlock and promote cooperation (100), facilitate coherence (101), and improve detection of weak signals through phenomena akin to stochastic resonance (102). Evidence from fish schools revealed that noise and decay are important for preventing the spread of false alarms (39). Further, rapid information flows may overwhelm cognitive processes and yield less accurate decisions (103, 104). Through multiple iterations of high-fidelity transmission, communication technology allows information in tweets and articles to propagate beyond the three or four degrees of separation inherent to noisier forms of communication (83). Facsimiles of false information (e.g., misinformation and disinformation) can now spread across vast swaths of society without the risk of decay or fact checking along the way. Adding friction to this process has become one of the more promising approaches to reducing misinformation online (105).

Information is also increasingly cheap to produce and distribute. This eliminates barriers that may previously have functioned as filters on the type of information that is shared and alters the role of traditional informational gatekeepers such as journalists (106). On the one hand, this may make the sharing of information more egalitarian and promote the voices of historically disenfranchised groups; on the other hand, lowering such costs reduces incentives to produce high-quality and accurate information. This is exacerbated in contexts where trust, network structure, or other factors insulate public figures from fact checking and consequences of spreading false information (107⇓–109). Anonymity online similarly permits the spread of low-quality information with minimal social cost and provides cover for bots brute-forcing a message onto a network (110).

As costs to inaccuracy decrease, individuals and institutions are better able to reap ideological and political benefits from outright lies (109). Portions of the society or networks repeatedly exposed to falsehood may normalize it or lack access to an information environment capable of sorting fact from fiction (107, 111, 112). The removal of filters that may have favored high-quality information, combined with rapid distribution of falsehood, may present one of the larger threats to human wellbeing when it comes to issues such as climate denial, vaccine refusal, treatment of minorities, and unfounded fears regarding the safety of genetically modified food.

Developments in media technology have reduced the granularity at which messages can be monetized in an information economy. Subscription-based models are receding as search engines, aggregator sites, social media platforms, and other innovations have created arenas of head-to-head competition among individual messages at the smallest scales of resolution. The unvarnished truth is no longer enough to prevail in the competition for attention (113). And that competition has become all of the more immediate as click-based advertising allows these microunits to be monetized directly and individually. New markets for pure misinformation emerge and thrive (114).

Innovations in the way we share information can have qualitative impacts as well—not only altering the rate, quantity, and fidelity of communication, but also fundamentally changing the types of information that can be stored in the first place (115). Changes to how information is stored and shared can alter and define power relationships. For example, the transition from oral to written history makes it possible to keep numerical records necessary for advanced commerce: debts can be recorded, taxes systematically extracted, and so forth. The advent of the printing press democratized not only who could own books, but also who could write them. The Internet has captured the long tail of human interests, allowing small groups of enthusiasts to find one another and document their passions in great detail. The advent of social media transferred the power to filter and screen content from professional editors to all of us, as we serve in an editorial capacity when we share information with our friends and thereby determine what they see (116). As technology develops, we will doubtless see other paradigm shifts. Being able to understand and predict the consequences of such shifts while, or even before, they are occurring must be a key focus of the study of human collective behavior.

Algorithmic Feedback.

Inexpensive digital computing has reduced the cost of developing and implementing algorithms—mathematical recipes for manipulating information—and made them a pervasive aspect of our daily lives. Algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) more specifically are used in many socially beneficial ways, from anticipating healthcare needs and making connections between potentially compatible individuals to regulating traffic and facilitating financial and policy decisions (117).

However, there is a growing concern regarding the impact of algorithmic decision making on individual and collective outcomes (118). For example, algorithms designed to filter, curate, and display the vast amount of information available online, combined with people’s tendency to seek friendly social environments, may induce biases in perceived reality and contribute to societal polarization (119⇓⇓–122). Algorithms that aim to facilitate hiring, lending, healthcare, policing, and criminal justice may provide an illusion of objectivity while reinforcing human biases and creating feedback loops that further exacerbate injustice and inequality (123⇓–125).

Algorithms designed to recommend information and products in line with supposed individual preferences can create runaway feedback wherein both the user’s information preferences and subsequent exposure to content become more extreme over time (119, 126). Such path dependencies may have transformative effects, changing the preferences and values of the users themselves and leading to radicalization (127, 128). This may be reinforced by platforms recommending content based on the preferences of friends (129). Small fluctuations in initial popularity can drive differences in visibility and thus the “rich get richer” (130). For example, in a classic experiment, the popularity of all but the very best and worst songs was shown to be more related to stochastic early positive reception by other users than by their inherent quality (87).

Algorithms that recommend friends with similar beliefs introduce further complications. For example, highly followed Twitter users tend to receive many more new followers than less-followed users, in particular since Twitter began recommending users to follow in 2010 (131). This algorithmic change has increased the inequality in the number of followers between users—altering the overall network structure in ways that may exacerbate the spread of misinformation (83).

In sum, we are offloading our evolved information-foraging processes onto algorithms. But these algorithms are typically designed to maximize profitability, with often insufficient incentive to promote an informed, just, healthy, and sustainable society. Efforts to develop an appropriate scientific or ethical oversight and understanding are still in their infancy, and the black-box and proprietary nature of many algorithms slows down this progress (132). As a result, we have little insight into how the millions of seemingly minor algorithmic decisions that shape information flows every second might be altering our collective behavior.

Collective Behavior as a Crisis Discipline

Humanity faces global and existential threats including climate change, ecosystem degradation, and the prospect of nuclear war. We likewise face a number of other challenges that impact our wellbeing, including racism, disease, famine, and economic inequality. Our success at facing these challenges depends on our global social dynamics in a modern and technologically connected world. Given our evolved tendencies combined with the impact of technology and population growth, there is no reason to believe that human social dynamics will be sustainable or conducive to wellbeing if left unmanaged.

Online and offline forces that impact collective behavior and action are inextricable (133). Yet offline changes to how we share information may require years to percolate through the community, whereas changes in the digital world can be implemented and imposed in a matter of seconds. In this sense, online communication technology increases the urgency of stewardship while providing opportunities to enact evidence-based policies at scale. For these reasons, we expect that stewardship of social systems will require increased focus on digital technologies. However, we caution that online and offline dynamics cannot be disentangled and careful consideration of both will be necessary for identifying successful intervention strategies.

Given that the impacts of communication technology on patterns of behavior cross the lines that divide academic disciplines, a transdisciplinary synthesis and approach to managing our collective behavior are required. Between the complexity of our social systems, the specter of ongoing human suffering, and the urgency required to avert catastrophe, we must face these challenges in the absence of a complete model or full understanding (14, 134). In this way, the field of human collective behavior must join the ranks of other crisis disciplines such as medicine, conservation biology, and climate science (20).

Other crisis disciplines thrive on a close integration of observational, theoretical, and empirical approaches. Global climate models inform, and are informed by, experiments in the laboratory and the field. Mathematics describing disease dynamics suggest treatment paradigms in medicine, which can be tested and validated (135). Ecological models suggest strategies such as establishing protected areas and using ecological cascades to manage deteriorating ecosystems (136). A similar approach can be adopted to study issues arising from communication technology.

For example, data-driven models of how information spreads may inform strategies to reduce political misinformation or antivaccine propaganda without requiring censorship. Similarly, modeling human interaction with recommendation algorithms may provide insight into best practices for detecting and deterring radicalization. Developing plausible mathematical theory will require integrating insight from scientists who rely on qualitative or mixed-methods approaches to study behavior online. Political communication research, in particular, has long described how alterations of networked communications technology appear to impact social movements, institutional politics, and political participation (133, 137).

A consolidated transdisciplinary approach to understanding and managing human collective behavior will be a monumental challenge, yet it is a necessary one. Given that algorithms and companies are already altering our global patterns of behavior for financial reasons, there is no safe hands-off approach. Below we chart a course for an applied, crisis-minded study of human collective behavior. We highlight some of the core challenges to doing so, issues requiring urgent attention, and necessary first steps.

Key Challenges and Future Directions

Stewardship will require incorporating our understanding of individual behavior with its emergent consequences at scale. Traditionally, fields such as psychology, social psychology, and behavioral economics have provided rich descriptions of individual behavior but have tended to study this behavior in experimental contexts with at most a few interacting individuals. By contrast, sociology, communication studies, science and technology studies, political science, and macroeconomics have measured or described patterns that occur at larger scales of organization using survey, ethnographic, and observational data, which can abstract away the underlying dynamics.

In the last few decades complexity science has begun to quantitatively link these scales of organization, generating a set of theoretical tools and frameworks for understanding how individual actions of interconnected agents give rise to social complexity (24, 42, 138). Incorporating a complex systems perspective is critical for understanding human behavior (24, 139, 140). Rigorous empirical tests of these models are still rare, which limits their usefulness for managing social dynamics.

Techniques adopted from the field of computational social science are well poised to bridge the gap between theory and measurement of collective behavioral processes (141, 142). Synchronous online experiments allow a detailed and controlled study of individuals interacting on social networks (143). These experiments can enable us to go beyond mathematically convenient but limited agent-based models and incorporate the richness and heterogeneity of individual behavior (97). Stewardship of collective processes will require an understanding of both individual motivations and their emergent consequences (144⇓–146).

Moving from scientific to actionable insight will also require an understanding of law, public policy, systemic risk, and international relations. Our social systems are coupled to a variety of other tangible complex systems, including economies, supply chains of food and medicine, and utilities such as power grids. Proposed evidence-based policies will have to consider the risk that policy poses to the stability of other systems when communication technology interventions are applied at scale. At present, little such caution is exercised.

We should not expect to devise a single set of best practices that equitably addresses the totality of problems facing humanity. Often, solutions will instead focus on specific issues. Even in these cases, proposed solutions addressing a given issue in a given locality (i.e., vaccine misinformation in the United States) may have limited impact or even detrimental effects elsewhere. As with conservation biology and medicine, the stewardship of social systems inherently involves risk, trade-offs, and nonuniform benefits and costs (147). Scientific study of collective behavior may be able to provide a description of these features, yet questions of whether they should be adopted will often lie in the realms of the humanities and public policy.

If we hope to steward collective behavior, we need to find rapid ways to communicate research that avoid lengthy delays associated with peer review (148) to transmit basic research findings to those responsible for deploying interventions on timescales commensurate with evolving digital institutions (149). White papers aimed at regulators and journalists are common in climate science and recently played an important role in responding to electoral misinformation and communicating COVID-19–related research (107, 150). In lieu of peer review, multiinstitution and interdisciplinary collaboration provides a degree of error checking prior to publication. Subsequent to publication, rapid postpublication peer review on social media and other venues can substitute for slower formal mechanisms. For nontraditional methods of scientific communication to succeed, institutions and universities must find ways to incorporate these contributions into funding, hiring, and promotion decisions.

We suggest that there is an urgent need for an equivalent of the Hippocratic oath for anyone studying or intervening into collective behavior, whether from within academia or from within social media companies and other tech firms. Decisions that impact the structure of society should not be guided by voices of individual stakeholders but instead by values such as nonmaleficence, benevolence, autonomy, and justice. To the extent that values and needs vary across individuals and cultural contexts, decisions will require careful deliberation or context-specific solutions (151). Our approach must further consider the impact on those that lack access to communication technology, as interventions that improve digital life may lead to inequity offline. For instance, online vaccination or electoral registration programs risk relative disenfranchisement of groups that cannot take advantage of them. In the absence of a globally held normative framework for deciding what constitutes healthy societies or desirable sociotechnical interactions, it may be difficult to even agree on what ethical stewardship might entail. Developing ethical standards that consider the range of cultural perspectives, histories, and traditions impacted by communication technologies is no easy task.

Proposed interventions must consider direct ethical obligations toward individuals (e.g., freedom of speech, autonomy), nonhuman beings, and the environment, as well as more generic obligations toward society at large (e.g., limiting disease burden, establishing food security). The relevant sciences will help us to map out how various technical innovations and applications impact society as a whole, as well as distinct segments of society such as marginalized groups. Armed with this information, regulators and the public can make ethical and political choices about how—and whether—to proceed. These decisions should be as empirically informed as possible and must be rooted in needs, values, and concerns. As value priorities may differ across time and cultural contexts, implementations that account for this variability must be considered.

As most communication technology is privately owned, the ability to study its impact, much less enact evidence-based policy, is constrained by the willingness of companies to cooperate. They may use insight from collective behavior to instead increase profits or simply refuse to act. For instance, there is evidence to suggest that a subset of users is engaged by misinformation, as well as emotionalized and moralized content (70, 83, 152, 153). From a company’s perspective, this content retains users who provide economic value and its removal may not be economically favorable or even viable. This raises the possibility that some business models may be fundamentally incompatible with a healthy society (154). In such cases, identified interventions may not be in the interests of either the company or the users that prefer it. We anticipate these contexts to be particularly challenging and require ample evidence of harm to be presented to the public and regulators. Producing such evidence will be substantially more difficult if companies have a heavy hand in the production, funding, and communication of research (155, 156). Overall, profitable approaches promoting healthy online interaction—should they exist—will be easier to implement. Ongoing crises in digital spaces have generated substantial momentum and insight toward stewardship. Misinformation poses grave threats including the spread of conspiracy theories, rejection of recommended public health interventions, subversion of democratic processes, and even genocide (90, 107, 157, 158). In response, communication scholars have adopted decades-old theories of propaganda and mass communication to understand disinformation and media manipulation online (154, 159, 160). Social psychologists have developed “nudges” to encourage more discerning sharing of content online (105). More rapid responses to misinformation have come about through collaborations between social and computer scientists (107, 161).

Beyond misinformation, understanding the consequences of dark patterns—user interface design that guides people against their interests—and opaque algorithms is now a major topic of research. Owing to a near-complete lack of transparency from tech companies, description and measurement are critical first steps (162, 163). Despite the opacity, research has revealed how algorithms lead users to radical or age-inappropriate content (128, 164), exacerbate disparities in health (123), and increase bias in policing (124). Unfortunately, misinformation, algorithms, dark patterns, and other issues arise at a rate far greater than they can be adequately characterized, much less addressed.

The challenges that arise from new communication technologies will require identifying common classes of problems and associated solutions. This is the approach adopted in conservation biology, where crises observed across multiple contexts (e.g., ecosystem collapse, mismanaged commons) lead to an understanding of multiscaled dynamics yielding solutions that can be tailored to given sociological and ecological contexts (8, 47, 64). While this is a starting point, it is by no means a panacea.

Proposed solutions in conservation biology and other crisis disciplines, no matter how elegant, are often stymied by inability to convert workable solutions into large-scale behavioral change. Clever solutions aimed at social system stewardship will face similar challenges. In this regard, social media’s influence provides a unique source of both risk and opportunity. Changes to a few lines of code can impact global behavioral processes. Such changes are ongoing, with or without scientific guidance. In the absence of evidence-informed policy recommendations, we should not expect the emergent consequences to be stabilizing or even beneficial. Collective behavior provides a framework for stewardship of social systems, not by supplanting other fields, but by stitching together disparate disciplines with a common goal.

Summary

Human collective dynamics are critical to the wellbeing of people and ecosystems in the present and will set the stage for how we face global challenges with impacts that will last centuries (14, 15, 64). There is no reason to suppose natural selection will have endowed us with dynamics that are intrinsically conducive to human wellbeing or sustainability. The same is true of communication technology, which has largely been developed to solve the needs of individuals or single organizations. Such technology, combined with human population growth, has created a global social network that is larger, denser, and able to transmit higher-fidelity information at greater speed. With the rise of the digital age, this social network is increasingly coupled to algorithms that create unprecedented feedback effects.

Insight from across academic disciplines demonstrates that past and present changes to our social networks will have functional consequences across scales of organization. Given that the impacts of communication technology will transcend disciplinary lines, the scientific response must do so as well. Unsafe adoption of technology has the potential to both threaten wellbeing in the present and have lasting consequences for sustainability. Mitigating risk to ourselves and posterity requires a consolidated, crisis-focused study of human collective behavior.

Such an approach can benefit from lessons learned in other fields, including climate change and conservation biology, which are likewise required to provide actionable insight without the benefit of a complete understanding of the underlying dynamics. Integrating theoretical, descriptive, and empirical approaches will be necessary to bridge the gap between individual and large-scale behavior. There is reason to be hopeful that well-designed systems can promote healthy collective action at scale, as has been demonstrated in numerous contexts including the development of open-sourced software, curating Wikipedia, and the production of crowd-sourced maps (165, 166). These examples not only provide proof that online collaboration can be productive, but also highlight means of measuring and defining success. Research in political communications has shown that while online movements and coordination are often prone to failure, when they succeed, the results can be dramatic (137). Quantifying benefits of online interaction, and limitations to harnessing these benefits, is a necessary step toward revealing the conditions that promote or undermine the value of communication technology.

A consolidated study of human collective behavior will be limited to providing mechanistic insight into the consequences of changes to our social system and potential solutions. The ethical issues raised by stewardship of social systems, like those associated with ecological systems, will require input from philosophy, public policy, and disciplines across the humanities (147). There is no viable hands-off approach. Inaction on the part of scientists and regulators will hand the reins of our collective behavior over to a small number of individuals at for-profit companies. Despite the scientific and ethical challenges, the risks of inaction both in the present and for future generations necessitate stewardship of collective behavior.

Data Availability

There are no data underlying this work.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the generous support of the University of Washington eScience Institute; the Knight Foundation; the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public; and the Princeton–Humboldt partnership, Cooperation and Collective Cognition Network. We further thank Duncan Watts, Joanna Sterling, and the late Henry Horn for invaluable feedback. We further thank Peter Callahan, Paul Larcey, Thayer Patterson, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Global Systemic Risk research community at Princeton University for their support and feedback during the early development of the manuscript. A.B.K. acknowledges support from a Baird Scholarship and an Omidyar Fellowship from the Santa Fe Institute. P.R. acknowledges funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC 2002/1 “Science of Intelligence”—Project 390523135, as well as through the Emmy Noether program, Project RO4766/2-1. I.D.C. acknowledges support from the NSF (IOS-1355061), the Office of Naval Research (N00014-19-1-2556), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy–EXC 2117-422037984, the Max Planck Society, the Struktur-und Innovations-funds für die Forschung of the State of Baden-Württemberg, and the Max Planck Society.

Footnotes
↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: joebak@uw.edu.


Author contributions: J.B.B.-C., M.A., W.B., C.T.B., M.A.C., I.D.C., J.F.D., M.G., A.S.G., J.J., A.B.K., R.E.M., P.R., D.I.R., K.J.T., J.J.V.B., and E.U.W. wrote the paper.


The authors declare no competing interest.


This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.


This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).