Project Liberty is stitching together an ecosystem of technologists, academics, policymakers and citizens committed to building a better internet—where the data is ours to manage, the platforms are ours to govern, and the power is ours to reclaim.
Three fundamental beliefs anchor our vision and form the foundation of Project Liberty’s work:
- Choice: When people have greater control over their individual experience online and expanded opportunities to manage their data, they can make informed decisions about everything from their privacy and safety to which spaces they choose to participate in. This is digital self-determination, and it is the fundamental principle of the web we deserve. It centers people, not platforms. It protects personal data, not corporate profits. It values freedom of movement across the web, not consolidation of power within any one platform. Self-determination online begins at the protocol level—the base infrastructure of the internet—which is why we’re developing new protocols like DSNP that give people agency over their digital experience and data.
- Voice: When people can act as digital citizens entrusted to shape the governance of the spaces they log into everyday, they can create platforms and applications driven by societal value and transparency instead of corporate profits and black-box algorithms. This is digital citizenship, and it is the set of collective responsibilities undertaken by people who embody digital self-determination to build a digital civic architecture of spaces, platforms, tools, and practices that put into practice the principles of openness, safety, privacy, accountability, transparency, and ownership.
- Stake: The platform-take-all business models of today’s internet are not equitable, long-term models. The economic value from big data and major network effects stem from the contributions, activity, and content of everyday people, and yet that value isn’t shared. An internet that resembles a representative democracy is an internet whose economic value is distributed fairly. This is digital ownership. It is the economic model compatible with a system of digital self-determination and digital citizenship. And yet, today we lack the models where people can participate in the economic upside of their data and online contributions. Innovation is needed, which is why Project Liberty is supporting the piloting and experimentation of new economic models for the future.
