From Free to Open: Building a Better Internet
By Pavel Zoneff, PR & Communications Director of Tor, based on our discussion “Caring for Each Other in Times of Crisis: A Collective Imagination”
The Problem
Today's popular platforms are free to use but profit from collecting, packaging, and selling our behavioral data. We have a "Free Internet" - not an "Open Internet."
This economic model is the foundation of the modern Internet and relies on constant surveillance. It needs our constant attention and data to fuel targeted advertising, political manipulation, and information warfare.
Governments now outsource surveillance to these companies. In the U.S., the NSA and FBI routinely buy Internet records - location data, search history, app usage - from unregulated data brokers without warrants. This happens unbeknownst to the average user just trying to find urgent care, read news, or take notes.
Big Tech's Unprecedented Power
Today, Big Tech wields global influence built on decades of collecting and manipulating personal data. This creates hopelessness: why protect privacy when the surveillance machine seems unstoppable? Hopelessness only serves the powerful - Big Tech's biggest hope is that we surrender our privacy.
Tor's Vision as a Model for a Better Way Forward
Building a better internet requires breaking free from Big Tech consumption patterns and reimagining the people-tech relationship. It starts with prioritizing privacy-over-profit.
As a nonprofit, Tor removes profit motivation - no need to capitalize on user data. In return, this means that users may need to contribute or financially support the tools they use, but it sidesteps the surveillance-for-profit cycle entirely.
In that respect, Tor and other FOSS tools model what the internet should be: community-supported, free AND open–owned and cared for by people.
This shifts the role of users from consumers of tech to creators and maintainers of it. And this applies to all types of users, not just the tech-savvy ones: Whether that’s in the form of contributing code, hardware and bandwidth, or providing translation support, testing, and feedback, to collectively power the infrastructure we all use.
The Tor network, Tor Browser, and Tails OS demonstrate that internet privacy is achievable and user-friendly thanks to the contributions of its users.
Why This Matters Now
Civil society needs safe online organizing spaces. With Big Tech partnering with administrations to target specific populations, Free and open-source alternatives help folks who organize without risking their private information.
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If you’re interested in learning more about some of the concepts in action and how to break through algorithmic control, be sure to check out the aptly named Driver’s Seat Cooperative and their app for iOS or Android. The project helps gig workers get paid more every day, combat gig companies' use of algorithmic management with tech that workers build themselves, bring honest data into workforce and transportation policymaking, and build a cooperatively-owned business that would sustain their mission.
This is all part of a larger discussion on building a digital solidarity community. If you want to learn more about Tor and how to break free from Big Tech to make privacy possible, learn more here.