Democracy in the Era of Trap: Cracker Culture, Feminisms and Hacker Ethics for the New Constitution in Chile
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Index The urgent need for technological democratisation in times of pandemic . .. 5 By Arnau Monterde The new discourse of voluntary servitude . 8 By Ingrid Guardiola Stuck on the Platform . Regression after the Network Demise . 12 By Geert Lovink Digital borders and surveillance humanitarianism . 15 By Javier Sánchez Monedero No man’s land? Bodies that matter in Silicon Valley democracy . 17 By Paz Peña O . A three ingredients recipe for combating digital colonialism in the city . 22 By Renata Ávila Situated technologies and digital self-management . 25 By Eurídice Cabañes We, our (data) bodies: reproductive justice as a framework for digital sovereignty . 30 By Alejandra López Gabrielidis and Toni Navarro Feminist infrastructure: technological sovereignty against online violence against women . 34 By Inés Binder and Martu An outlaw technology to create information freedom in science . 39 By Alexandra Elbakyan Strategies and alliances for halting the spread of fear and hatred on social media . .. 43 By Marta G . Franco (Red Levadura) An antidote to polarisation, fake news and democratic fatigue: the civic lottery . 47 By Arantxa Mendiharat and Ernesto Ganuza Democracy in the era of Trap: cracker culture, feminisms and hacker ethics for the new constitution in Chile . 50 By Francisca Keller, Matías Toledo and Sofía Brito Tools for participation and self-determination of rights for support networks in the COVID crisis . 54 By David Vila-Viñas and Daniel Ayuda (CO)INCIDIM: Experience of using Decidim for Social Movements . 59 By Marta Anducas and Dante Maschio, in collaboration with Pau Parals Technopolitical Autonomy . What it means and why Decidim is a good example . 63 By Xabier E . Barandiaran Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format . Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the materialfor any purpose, even commercially . DECIDIM FEST 2020 PROGRAM This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works . The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms . The urgent need for technological democratisation in times of pandemic By Arnau Monterde (Barcelona City Hall, decidim org). The advent of the COVID-19 crisis and its impact And this is where the urgency lies . Not only the on society as a whole has highlighted a series of urgency of finding a common solution to the issues that have to do with our vulnerability as coronavirus crisis that will benefit the whole a society, while at the same time highlighting population, but also, and no less importantly, of the need to safeguard some of the pillars of pu- beginning to define other ways of thinking, un- blic and community life that we need to hold our derstanding and building new relationships with communities together when everything falls the digital world, with this privatised and cen- apart. More specifically, here the focus is on the tralised digital world that is completely beyond current crisis which has highlighted how little democratic and civic control . It is no coinciden- our voices count at a time of crisis, when sud- ce that in this advanced and quite sophisticated denly the entire political chain of command is phase of surveillance capitalism, as Shoshana recentralised by default . Knowledge garnered Zuboff points out, the concentration of the eco- from other disciplines, together with any form nomic power of these companies is increasing, of participation in the decision-making process as is their capacity to colonise the world with that falls outside the “expert” sphere occupied their products . They do this through the cons- by politicians, doctors and epidemiologists is tant extraction of the data that we - the people reduced to zero . Furthermore, in the context or the users - generate, and which provides "the of lockdown, one of the most extreme physical fuel" for a new economy based on the capacity to manifestations of this crisis, the importance of process this data and use it to control, monitor the digital world and our dependency on the big (in both the direct and indirect sense), and even Internet providers (known operators) and the manipulate, our social, individual and collective technology giants known as GAFAM (Google, behaviour . This centralisation and total privati- Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft) has sation is taking place at all levels of the Internet, grown more than ever . For this reason it is ne- in the infrastructure (cables, satellites, anten- cessary to start to recognise, when we are tal- nas and servers), in the code or software (where king about the digital world, that, as a society, the large social networks are still far from open we are dependent on huge privately owned en- source), and in the massive data silos generated tities that are making decisions about us today, every second and processed via algorithms and and we are seeing how utterly impotent we are, the drumbeat of an artificial intelligence, still far the public sector in particular, which has had from being auditable or open, and above all im- nothing to say for itself during the many months bued with the prevailing inequality biases within since the pandemic began . our society . DECIDIM FEST 2020 · 18 - 20 November | Arnau Monterde The urgent need for technological democratisation in times of pandemic 5 The present consequences of this scenario are From a different perspective, Ingrid Guardiola sive use of social networks by ultra-right-wing sent, a form of dissent that produces solutions not insignificant. Renata Avila talks about data situates the voluntary servitude of this collecti- groups who, thanks to the way that these ne- to conflict that are not based on a hatred of the colonialism and the new ways of colonising our ve moment of conscious acceptance of our role tworks are designed and the lack of democratic other, of what is different, of the invisible, or of society and our knowledge, in a process that is as servile providers of the data that feeds the control over them, have found a perfect plat- the subordinate . uncontrolled . There is limited collective resis- machines that feed the algorithms and that is form from which to bombard us with fake news, tance to the plundering of our privacy and of the fed back into our lives again . In short, we could spread lies, confront, construct content that fo- There are horizons close at hand in which some information we generate in the communication talk about a permanent state of manipulation ments machismo, violence, and hatred, feeding ways of thinking, developing, and spreading free processes in different media that are essential that is consciously accepted . The privatisation communication wars on the web as points from democratic technologies are already emerging, to our daily lives . This brings us to what Eurydi- of public, emotional, social, and political life is which to dispute public debate . as is the case with Decidim, together with many ce Cabañes calls algorithmic governance, pro- a reality insofar as all forms of interaction pass others . This is happening at all levels - open cesses and models in which forms of govern- through private means . And the social networ- It is because of all these things and their irre- and community infrastructures, free hardware ment are not only mediated but reconstructed ks are not the only protagonists . This model of versibility that there is an urgent need to un- and software, data justice, and design justice by a specific view of how the world is organised. colonisation is heading for all the digital spaces derstand, to face up to these issues and to move or critical artificial intelligence. There are many More specifically, Paz Peña points out how Sili- that are yet to be conquered . A paradoxical case towards scenarios which run contrary to this robust projects that are advancing and moving con Valley constructs the world in its own image is that of the arrival of Google in schools . Under new digital order . Reformist scenarios which towards other ways of understanding the digital and likeness . Silicon Valley governs the world ba- the guise of "usability" and ease of access, the regulate and stop the uncontrolled expansion society, in which collaboration, open knowledge, sed on design, through its digital products that company has virtually become the norm and the of these giants; symbiotic scenarios in which to democratic governance and common sense pre- are born of the relationships, socialisation and model for digital education - and even more so exploit and deconstruct many of the powers full vail over purely extractivist and market-based intensive use of digital technology designed by since the advent of lockdown . Google colonises of contradictions of corporate social networks logics . The time has come to start building a glo- white upper middle class males with a uniform an area of such vital importance as the educa- as new colonised public spaces, and disruptive bal alliance for digital rights, democratic tech- world view . Due to the fact that it is imposed tion of children who are still (partly) free from the scenarios which promote and reinforce the de- nologies made up of multiple networks capable and totalised by default, it becomes useless as Matrix without meeting any form of resistance . velopment of autonomous, democratic, open of starting to provide collective and authorita- a model for conceptualising our societies, so- Google, even if it says otherwise, captures, sto- and free processes and technologies at the ser- tive responses to this permanent colonisation cieties that aspire to be open, free and diverse, res and processes data on pupils from as young vice of society as a whole . Obviously, for this to and governance of our forms of interaction . At and that are so very necessary in the 21st cen- as 4-5 years of age, a forced relationship that happen, a change of mentality is needed in all the same time, we must launch a plan for a tech- tury.