Fighting for democracy and human rights in the age of networked authoritarianism

We have been cursed to live in interesting times.

Over the past few decades, we have seen the internet morph from an expert communication network to a basic utility.

In my lifetime, democracy has gone from “the end of the history” to being critically endangered.

Since I was an undergrad, social networks have evolved from playgrounds for college students to highly monetized battlefields for information warfare.

And in less than ten years, the United States has devolved from being a flawed nation striving to live up to its promise and the uncontested leader of the free world to an increasingly authoritarian kleptocracy dominated by white Christian nationalists and greedy technosolutionists with little regard for human rights.

Of course, much of this was predictable. Scholars and advocates have been sounding the alarm for years: Silicon Valley’s ideological roots and the incentive structures created by its business models put the tech industry on a collision course with liberal democracy.

The time for warnings is over. It’s time to fight back.