For more than 30 years, Marleen Stikker has been reflecting on the role of technology in society and has been exploring alternatives. After a successful evening at Zomergasten in 2018 she captured her ideas in a book Het internet is stuk (the internet is broken).
In the early days, we had high hopes for the internet. Internet pioneers worked hard to shape the medium according to positive, democratic values. But big money and tech giants managed to completely take over our digital environment, even eroding our democracy and identity. We have lost our digital sovereignty. We are bugged, controlled, followed, lived through, and we allowed that to happen ourselves.
In Het internet is stuk, Marleen Stikker explores what went wrong and how we can reclaim the internet by putting people, not the economy, at the centre, protecting our data, and making sense of our technologies. We need to take back control of our digital lives. We broke the internet ourselves, we must - and can! - fix it ourselves too.
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In honour of Waag Futurelab's 30th anniversary, the book is available for free download. The book is available under a Creative Commons BY-SA licence.
Do you prefer the ebook, audiobook or paperback edition? These can be ordered in Dutch on the Libris website.
