By Adrian Gropper
As we inexorably digitize everyday life, for-profit “Big Tech” cannot be trusted to serve the individual or society.
Personal information must not be locked-in to a commercial tech “platform,” such as Facebook or a branded for-profit entity.
Personal information infrastructure must be treated the same way we treat infrastructure for clean water — as a fundamental human right. Two decades of privatized corporate control over personal information technology in the form of social networks and targeted advertising is evidence that market-based information services for social interaction and free speech can no longer be treated as a discretionary. Private interests are certainly welcome, but the foundational distribution system must be seen as a “commons” accessible to all for the good of all.