How can we build a radical internet?

Corinne Cath explores recent research that paves the way for more radical alternatives to the current internet, centered in the public interest.

As crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, geopolitical strife, and economic inequality create increasingly unliveable conditions, we must critically question the assumption that the internet’s current design, including corporate ownership of communication and information infrastructure, is what enables its continuous development and functioning. 

Pushing back on these developments, however, requires infrastructures that do not replicate the status quo of the current political economy driving networking, and its heavy reliance on market-driven technology development, deregulation, and governance by industry consensus. 

To outline paths towards developing alternatives to the current internet that are centred in the public interest, we—Corinne Cath, Britt Paris, and Sarah Myers-West—put our dissertation research, on the politics and materiality of internet infrastructure, in conversation with each other. 

Case studies of internet infrastructure

We provide a set of concrete cases that illustrate the failures and opportunities of design and governance of Internet infrastructure from various different vantages analysed through existing work in science and technology studies around sociotechnical imaginaries, policymaking, agent-driven reconfiguration, and the ethics of care. 

The three cases, covering the Future Internet Architecture Projects (FIA), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the cryptographic community, are all distinct sites of Internet infrastructure development, each with its own promises to achieve radical, people-centered outcomes. 

FIA’s is US based effort, with the goal of building new protocols to replace Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) that currently transfer and route information, while engaging in ethics and values in design directives. The IETF is a global industry-led standardisation body, that develops standards and protocols for diverse internet networks to connect. The cryptographic community, in this study, refers to the subset of individuals that seek to contest the conditions of surveillance capitalism through the production of encrypted software, as well as through community dialogues designed to make this software more widely usable to affected communities.  

How to build internet infrastructure differently

We found three distinct starting points for the creation of radical infrastructure that is based in pushing back on technosolutionist thinking, developing new forms cooperation for infrastructure development and governance, and non-market based solutions that preface care and community over atomisation and growing connectivity. 

Busting the Myth of Technosolutionism

We highlight the need to continue to fight the myth that the internet is the solution for social problems. This ‘techno-solutionism’ myth–the mistaken idea that social issues can be fixed through technical solutions– is thoroughly critiqued by activists and academics, but remains popular with technical and industry based organisations developing internet infrastructure.

The notion that the internet is an inherent good that can ‘solve’ societal problems, precludes and silences legitimate critique about its potential harms. 

“How can a just and equitable Internet be built from what exists when the Internet was developed by the military and corporations to surveil and extract data from users?”

New support mechanisms for the development of the internet 

Furthermore, we need to rethink how the internet is built, governed and made accessible. The current reigning model by which internet infrastructure is built cements the political economy of data extraction and rentiership that sustains it. 

In the paper, we ask: How can a just and equitable Internet be built from what exists when the Internet was developed by the military and corporations to surveil and extract data from users? 

One potential route involves developing new sources of support for the development of internet infrastructure, outside of this existing economic model. For instance, through community cooperatives, or government or philanthropic funding. 

Encouraging technical communities to build around cooperativity not connectivity

Last but not least, there many encouraging examples of small groups of individuals building ‘community networks’, meant to serve the needs of their community rooted in an ethic of cooperation, rather than a commercial push for connectivity. 

These networks are not perfect, they struggle with scale and finding sustainable funding. Yet, their existence and key role in regions across the world where limited commercial incentive exists to build ‘last-mile’ connections, provides inspiration for building more radical infrastructure. More research and resources are needed on, and for, such endeavours. 

The future(s) of the people centric networks

We believe that much can be learned from contemporary sites and practices within internet infrastructure development that chose to pursue radical and people centred outcomes, we hope this research provides a small step towards that effort.

Corinne Cath is an affiliate of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.