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The Public Interest Internet

What if the internet were public interest technology? Is that too wildly speculative? I think not. I am not talking about a utopian project here — a public interest internet would be a glorious imperfect mess and it would be far from problem-free. But while there is a lot of solid thinking about various digital issues or pieces of internet infrastructure (much of which I rely upon here), I have yet to read to an answer to this question: What global digital architecture should we assemble if we take seriously the idea that the internet should be public interest technology?

Requiring a political decision means that it's possible to learn from operations, but that the lessons have to be passed through the crucible of debate, which serves to reduce the OKR-driven stupidity of middle management optimisation and helps keep the system open to change, to a plurality of needs and ways of thinking. Technologists tend to take this for granted, but the oppressive nature of the current infrastructure is leading many people to long for a dark forest approach to the internet, in which they can join a small disconnected island they trust and be minimally exposed to the rest. 19 Systems like W3C voting that have one-member/one-vote but that don't counterbalance actual market power over decision-making do not meet this commitment, but minority-protecting mechanisms such as horizontal review for accessibility, internationalisation, privacy, or security are key (to the extent we make them enforceable).

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