In the networked society many different types of data become part of our human experience. A phone call, an SMS, a Skype session, Facebook postings, email and search results create a sphere around us in which we meet each other and also meet our selves. Different networks combine as much data as possible to target and inspire individual behaviour. Today this so-called ‘profiling’ results in smart marketing strategies and also affects the way political agencies and secret networks operate while democratic control is not core to these systems.
Internet technology, originally designed for the military, aims to facilitate autonomy and self-organisation as a way to survive a global crisis of any sort. This quality of the Internet resonates in the experience of millions of people. However, today technologies are developed in a neoliberal global ‘free zone’ and human dignity and the well-being of our planet are at stake. No International Court or the United Nations, for example, demand specific design and engineering principles to safeguard human dignity and ecological balance.
