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Dear netizens, cyborgs, hackers and cybernauts! Dear programmers, cyber surfers and web tinkerers! Dear searchers, seekers, creators and writers! Dear posters, lurkers, viewers and influencers and all others gathered today around a screen, speaker, braille reader or other interface, today we lift our cursors, voices, eyes, styluses and minds to toast the interdependence of cyberspace.
We would not be here without each other.
There would be no subsea cables, no satellite connectivity, no wifi, no routers, no mesh networks, no data centers, no mobile connectivity and no internet exchange points without the work of countless people. From the day the first signals were sent subsea to distant shores, the work of many hands has ensured that messages, videos, shit posts and emails make it from where we are to where we want them to be.
We would not be here without each other.
There would be no modern internet without user generated content. There would be no user generated content without places for users to put said content is the first lie.
But still, we would not be here without each other.
While military, university and government interests have dominated the open web since its inception, the weather is changing (as offline, so online). We have variously begun or continued to raise our voices in defence of cyberspace's openness, fighting censorship, greed, slop, the rising tide of fascism, multiple genocides, the erosion of democracy, the theft of our attention, inaccessibility, and so many more issues.
Corporations cannot control cyberspace. No one interest should. We need the plurality of the web to remain, for its wildness and splendour to flourish, not paved over.
We cannot change this without each other.
There is no one path to better, as there is no one path to anything. nothing is inevitable and luckily not everything is irreversible. If you're sick of hell, build heaven.
We can do this. Together.
P.S: breaking the format now to say that i have been thinking about "so what we actually do?" of it all and don't want to say the usual "join a union! write to your representatives!" only so recommending you watch some videos about activist/anarchist calisthenics, think about your relationship with Big Tech critically (not necessarily to boycott it - i think organised boycotts are better for impact in that sense - but in a "what alternatives exist? could i do without this? why? does it work for everyone? what would i change about this in a better world?" sense, normal criticism stuff) and do stuff in your community!
P.P.S: if you have suggestions for resources and framing for this idea and feeling, please get in touch, I feel like a lot of people I know are feeling defeated. I feel hopeful but I am focusing my energy in a lot of offline directions, and yeah yeah, as offline so online, but also I would like to do more than support my union and yap in the directly technology-related spaces.
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