Twitter is investing US$10 million in a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build platforms for online collaboration by people on civic and political issues.

The Laboratory for Social Machines (LSM) set up by MIT Media Lab will have access to Twitter’s real-time, public stream of tweets as well as archives, dating back to the first tweet on the social network, MIT said.

Decentralized digital networks have been more suited to disrupting old social and political hierarchies than building the systems to replace them, according to MIT Media Lab. The lab will be exploring the potential of social networks “to remake the public sphere” by providing tools for institutions and individuals to collaborate on social problems, it added.

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