*Structural constraints.* The framework's account of mutual recognition at scale derives that the mediation layer's public-square institutions (public broadcasting with structural independence, public libraries in their full digital-and-physical role, comprehensive public education, and civic-information infrastructure) are constitutive infrastructure, not a discretionary subsidy. This channel is jointly constitutive with the [§9.2](<9.2 Belonging.md>) face-to-face base it scales: the base ground-truths what the mediation layer carries ([§9.2.5](<9.2.5 What is Concluded.md>)), while the mediation layer extends recognition beyond what direct encounter can reach. Privatizing or dismantling the public-square infrastructure therefore violates the constraint at the structural level on the same logic that privatizing the justice system violates [§9.13](<9.13 Justice.md>). Specific designs (funding architectures, library-system designs, public-broadcasting models) remain underdetermined, but adequate public-square infrastructure must exist jointly with the [§9.2](<9.2 Belonging.md>) base at the design-pressure level. The framework precludes engagement-optimization revenue models for platforms occupying the role of primary information-environment infrastructure, a preclusion at the level of design pressure rather than absolute prohibition, since small-scale engagement-optimized platforms exist within an information environment whose primary infrastructure is non-engagement-optimized, the structural-extraction pattern emerging where engagement-optimization occupies the primary role. And it precludes ownership concentration of information infrastructure beyond thresholds at which narrative-distortion becomes structural, leaving the specific thresholds and the metrics that determine them to the implementation literature while the structural preclusion holds at the design-pressure level.

*Cross-domain couplings.* Public discourse couples constitutively to representation ([§9.3](<9.3 Representation.md>)): the two form a single recognition-and-deliberation infrastructure, reform of one without the other produces smaller effects than reformers anticipate, and information-environment maintenance and representation reform have to be designed together. It couples to economic structure ([§9.7](<9.7 Economy.md>)), where the economic structure of the information industry (advertising-dependent versus subscription versus public, concentrated versus diffuse ownership) governs information-environment quality, so reform that addresses only the technology and not the economic structure is predicted to underperform. And it couples to the technology condition ([§8.11](<8.11 Technology.md>)): the AI-generated-content prediction and its developing empirical confirmation place this section directly on the technology-condition fault line, making the question of whether the framework's information-environment maintenance capacity can scale fast enough to meet the AI-content scale a constitutive question rather than a peripheral one.

*Field-engagement.* The state-censorship-versus-platform-moderation distinction is load-bearing: the framework precludes state censorship of speech, under the representation-quality protection that follows from the direction-recognition constraint, while licensing platform moderation as legitimate stewardship of the platform's contribution to the information environment, the two being different categories on the framework's terms, conflating them producing the policy confusion [§9.4.3](<9.4.3 What is Predicted.md>) Prediction 5 names, and honoring the distinction a constitutive interpretive move for the framework's discourse-policy implications. The framework does not endorse a specific algorithmic-regulation architecture, since various designs satisfy the engagement-optimization-at-scale preclusion (transparency requirements, algorithmic-impact assessments, design constraints on amplification, engagement-revenue caps, structural separation of content-creation and content-amplification) and it precludes the destination of pure engagement-optimization at scale without picking among framework-compatible regulatory architectures. Nor does it require a single public-broadcasting model: BBC-style with hypothecated funding, PBS/NPR-style with mixed funding, and member-state-funded continental designs each satisfy the public-square-infrastructure constraint under different calibrations, the specific design left to the implementation literature.

What the framework leaves open is a specific algorithmic-regulation architecture among framework-compatible alternatives, the specific media-ownership-concentration thresholds (only the structural preclusion at scale being fixed), the specific public-broadcasting design among framework-compatible models, the specific platform-moderation rules (the framework licenses moderation in principle but does not write the rule book), the specific information-environment response to AI-generated content at scale (the framework derives the urgency and licenses the response architecture, but the response design is its own engineering question), and the specific calibration of speech-protection thresholds at edge cases such as defamation, incitement, and commercial speech.

These implications are derived under engagement with the contested public-discourse opposition traditions [§9.4.1](<9.4.1 What is Disputed.md>) names at premise, the cyber-utopian / networked-community defense (Benkler, *The Wealth of Networks* 2006; Shirky, *Here Comes Everybody* 2008) and Rawlsian political liberalism (Rawls, *Political Liberalism* 1993), which [§9.4.1](<9.4.1 What is Disputed.md>) engages at section length, so that the implications stated here apply under that engagement. Where multiple designs satisfy the constraints, the framework leaves the choice to the design literatures, the empirical record, and the recognized direction of the population through [§9.3](<9.3 Representation.md>) (Representation).

Across its five subsections, [§9.4](<9.4 Information.md>) amounts to a single claim: scaling mutual recognition to political size requires a maintained mediation layer (public-square infrastructure that preserves distinctness and asymmetric exchange and is not optimized against recognition) operating jointly with the [§9.2](<9.2 Belonging.md>) face-to-face base it scales. The confirmation record shows that engagement-optimization and concentrated ownership produce exactly the information-environment failures the structural account predicts. The institutional-design implications follow directly: mediation-layer reform and [§9.2](<9.2 Belonging.md>) base investment are not two separate policy agendas but two registers of one structural obligation, and reform of either without the other underperforms.


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← [9.4.4 What is Confirmed](<9.4.4 What is Confirmed.md>) | [9.5 Environment](<9.5 Environment.md>) →
