Sustainable Media Center Substack
In this episode of the Sustainable Media Center’s HubStack Live, Emma Lembke sits down with Gen Z board member and democracy reform advocate Imre Huss for a wide-ranging conversation about youth civic engagement in the digital age.
Huss traces his path into advocacy, shaped by his family’s history in Poland and his own experiences witnessing democratic challenges both abroad and in the United States. From there, the conversation moves into the realities of growing up online, where social media serves as both a powerful tool for connection and a source of fragmentation, misinformation, and algorithm-driven echo chambers.
Together, they explore what happens when a generation gets most of its news from platforms optimized for engagement rather than accuracy, and what it means for democracy when there is no longer a shared baseline of truth. Huss shares insights from his work co-founding a civic tech initiative designed to make reliable, local political information more accessible to young people, and offers a clear critique of how current systems fail to meet that need.
The episode closes with a focus on solutions, from rethinking algorithm design to building tools that encourage exposure to diverse viewpoints. Despite the challenges, Huss makes the case that this moment is also an opportunity, one where a new generation has the tools, urgency, and perspective to help rebuild civic life in a more informed and intentional way.
